[Sussex] Working with files from Windows partition

[Gavin Stevens]

Hi all,

A question if I may:

My partner Tracy's PC is a dual boot of Win98 & Ubuntu.

There are some files (all of them .doc files that have been sent by
e-mail) that she would like to be able to read, edit & print in Linux.

Why not use Win98? Because it gives an "illegal operation" warning when
she tries to open these files in Windows (Tracy doesn't use MS Office,
instead preferring WordPerfect 8). So, whereas Tracy used to forward
them onto me so that I could print them for her, she would like to do
this herself now that she has Ubuntu on her machine.

Currently, I can only open these files if I open Nautilus as root on her
machine, double-clicking one of the files makes it open in OpenOffice.

I notice that in Ubuntu, root has a run level (is that the right term?)
of 755, but viewing files in My Documents via Nautilus, shows these
files with a level of 744, thus the Ubuntu root can't alter permissions
or anything, because its level is less powerful than the level in My
Documents.

There is probably a good reason for this, but if it isn't too dangerous,
how would I change the run level of files in My Documents so that the
ordinary user account can access them?

I hope this makes sense to someone.

TIA for any help.

Gavin.