Ahhh... sounds like something that would happen with a Microsoft file format.
Keep clicking on it and maybe your screen will go blue
If you can get it open in text edit that sounds like a winner to me, unless you
need to maintain his formatting?? But I can't see that being the case.....
I don't know what ms word extensions are these days, but try changing it to
that (whatever it is). If that's a no go - work on getting him to upgrade