You don't *have* to send them the conversion utility...but in order for them
to open your Office 2007 document, they will have to get and install the
utility from somewhere (it's available from MS' web site). But if you
already know you will be sending documents to people without Office 2007, it
would be easier for everyone involved to simply save your document in "Word
97-2003" format. Then you don't have to worry about the conversion utility
and you also won't have to worry about your own documents should you decide
not to purchase Office 2007 after the trial period.
Your other comment "Presently if I open an attachment I receive it opens in
Office 2007"...that is how it's supposed to work.
And lastly "I don't know if I need Office 2007 as Vista comes with Notepad
and Wordpad"...you have to decide that for yourself. If Notepad and Wordpad
works for you, then great...you don't need Office 2007. If that is your line
of thinking, you might want to consider one of the free Office-compatible
applications such as OpenOffice. Go to
www.openoffice.org and check it out.
Tim