saved docs gibberish-~$?

please make answers real simple, I saved a doc. and when I reopen,it was
all little boxes. The name of the messed up doc. had ~$ first. Now when I try
to open it, I get the error message"c:\documents and settings\owner\new
microsoft word document.doc is not a valid Win 32 application". I can't
remember how I saved it. Is it lost? How can I prevent in future?
--
dt

Sorry, but you've posted this to the wrong newsgroup. You'll need to post to
a group dealing with MS Word.

Brian


"dt" wrote in message
...
please make answers real simple, I saved a doc. and when I reopen,it
was
all little boxes. The name of the messed up doc. had ~$ first. Now when I
try
to open it, I get the error message"c:\documents and settings\owner\new
microsoft word document.doc is not a valid Win 32 application". I can't
remember how I saved it. Is it lost? How can I prevent in future?
--
dt