Q: how do I open a apple works 6 document with a ox 10.8.3

The folks who know ALL the ins and outs are in this nearby forum:

AppleWorks

I think Pages and TextEdit may be able to open Word processing documents

It depends on what type of AppleWorks document it is. You can open AppleWorks 6 word processing, spreadsheets & presentations in Pages, Numbers & Keynote respectively. You cannot open any other type (draw, paint or database) of AppleWorks 6 documents with any iWork application nor can you open AppleWorks 5 or any version of ClarisWorks documents.

There is no special importing needed. There are several methods you can use, common to most Mac applications. Use the Open dialog, Control- or right-click & choose the desired application from Open With in the contextual menu or drag the icon of the file onto the desired application icon in the Finder or the Dock.

Draw Documents can be opened directly only in EazyDraw (the more expensive version from their website, not the cheaper one from the Mac App Store, and you will need v4.0 'Retro' not the most recent version) or Intaglio (though this appears not to be able to handle very complex drawings).

Nothing will open Paint or Database documents - databases have to be converted in AppleWorks to ASCII then imported into a database program (you will lose all formatting and calculations will bring over the result, not the calculation).

If you have upgraded to Lion/Mountain Lion and have AppleWorks documents you cannot open, then you should be able to install Snow Leopard on an external hard disk and start from that (provided that the Mac did not come with anything higher than Snow Leopard originally installed); and success has been reported in running Snow Leopard under emulation in Parallels - the method is described here: it seems complex; however Snow Leopard Server is available in the Apple Store (by telephone) at a reduced price (at the time of writing) and this makes the process a lot easier. I haven't tried either method: use at your own discretion. You can then run AppleWorks as an emergency measure.

There is a detailed article on 'Abandoning AppleWorks' here:

http://rfwilmut.net/aw

Appleworks 6.2.9 running in Snow Leopard Server installed into Parallels 8 for use in Lion or Mt. Lion (per method linked in Roger's comment):

                              [click on image to enlarge]