Neophyte's questoon

[Ar...@aol.com]

Dear Sirs:
 
3-4 times a month, I have to send in some of my work in "plain text" to my  
editors. This presented no problem using Word or WordPad. I would save the  
document in question in "plain text", eventually open it up, modify it, 
correct  it, and send it to the editor as an attachment.
 
Once I downloaded Open Office, the above procedure would not work. A  
computer guru said it's because Open Office "commandeered" "txt" when it was  
installed. He found "txt" in the default list. It had an Open Office icon next  
to it. He changed the icon to WordPad -- and all works well now.
 
My questions:
1. I am not yet using Writer because I'm afraid of it (I'm an 84 year  old 
klutzy neophyte). If I choose to use Writer as my word processor, will  that 
use automatically result in the "commandeering" of "txt" (see above)?
 
2. If so, is there some way to prevent that and still use Writer as my word 
 processor?
 
(The great advantage, for me, in using Open Office is that it can read the  
scads of Word documents I have composed over the years. WordPad can NOT do 
that  and I do not have Microsoft Word currently installed on this computer)
 
If it helps you in figuring out the answer to my questions, I should state  
that I am using a Dell Inspiron 660 desktop with Windows 8.1 installed.
 
Thank you for whatever assistance you can give me
 
Arthur