Lost "Alias" for Some Documents

Hello,

I am having a frustrating time with a few files. I reformatted my macbook pro, but I backed everything up (manually) to an external HD. I also emailed myself a document of importance.

After the reformat, I brought some documents back to my MacBook. Some were fine. But others don't open. It says the Alias cannot be found, and provides the options of "Fix" and "Delete" the Alias.

Anyway, even the copy sent to my email, it has no icon and it doesn't open properly. MS word makes me decrypt it but I've tried every option and it won't work. I've troubleshooted this quite a bit these last couple days. I followed the steps I found for similar issues but they didn't work. I tried finding the alias via my external HD, that didn't work. In fact, it doesn't even allow me to select the file to match it.

Would really appreciate some help here. I don't understand how various backups of some of these files are all not working. I even tried opening the one saved in my email on a windows desktop. What gives?