Word saves to word pad and not to word?

Hi,
I am using XP with service pack 2 and office 97. When I try to save a document that I produced in Word it automatically saves it to Word Pad. I hate Word Pad. A lot of stuff that I try to email such as a resume is only recognized in Word. Can someone tell me how to get past this problem? Do I need to buy Office or Word 2003 or something?
Thanks in advance for your help.
MT

When you go to save as what is in the drop down box? Does it save as a word document but when you click to open it, it opens in wordpad? If that is the case you need to right click it, choose open with and select word from the list. Tick the box which says always use this program to open these documents.