why can't I read word documents from my flash drive from another computer?

Answer 1

If you used Vista or Microsoft 2007 to produce the document and are trying to open it up on XP or Microsoft 2000 or any of the older versions then it won't work.

If not you may have a corrupted document and then you won't be able to open it on any version of Microsoft

Answer 2

New versions of Office are not recognized on computers with older versions of Office. Ofc 2003 and 2007 will not display on a machine that has Ofc 2000. A machine with 2007 will recognize 2003 and 2000.