Word Document won't open

[neusys]

I bought Office: 2008 in 2010. Lately, I had to use Word quite a lot for school. I wasn't able to access Word Help; it claimed it was nowhere to be found. So I reinstalled the whole CD. Now, it shows version 12.2.3 and when I click on a document, it doesn't not open Word without giving me a large error window that needs to be send off to Mac, BUT when I open Word up directly, it allows me to open up the document. Can anyone explain what the problem is. Oh, by the by, I can now get Word Help; it throws up a window that asks if I want to stay offline for go online for help. Thanks in advance