why won't my ipad open office documents

Nice question with simple answer!

As it is not supported.

You can open excel files using "numbers" .

No, it only supports PDF, doc, docx (documents)

You can download iWork for iPad (pages, numbers, keynote)

To open other formats including open office formats.

It supports Excel .xls and .xlsx files in quick view, but I'm not sure how up-to-date the version support is i.e. whether it supports the most recent version(s) of those Excel files.

You can use the following to open/edit/save MS Office document

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http://i1224.photobucket.com/albums/ee374/Diavonex/0392a80b.jpg

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Try closing the Mail app completely and see if the attachments download when you re-open the app (if they do you should then be able to press and hold the attachment and do 'open in' to copy it to the app, assuming that the app supports it) : from the home screen (i.e. not with the Mail app 'open' on-screen) double-click the home button to bring up the taskbar, then press and hold any of the apps on the taskbar for a couple of seconds or so until they start shaking, then press the '-' in the top left of the Mail app to close it, and touch any part of the screen above the taskbar so as to stop the shaking and close the taskbar.

If that doesn't work also do a reset : press and hold both the sleep and home buttons for about 10 to 15 seconds (ignore the red slider), after which the Apple logo should appear - you won't lose any content, it's the iPad equivalent of a reboot.