Problems with MS Word and Excel

I'm running Parallels 4.0.3540 on a 20" iMac with 3 GB of memory of which 1GB is allocated to the Windows XP virtual Machine. I run Parallels in coherence. My problem is that when downloading a file within the Mac OS and the file is either a .doc or a .xls when I attempt to open it, my machine automatically boots Parallels and then XP if it is not open and uses the Windows version of Word or Excel rather than the Mac Office that I have ALSO installed on my MAC OS partition. I want to read the files within the Mac OS NOT the Parallels VM. What setting have I forgotten to change so that the default file viewer for a .doc or .xls will be the Mac side NOT the XP side?

Thanks,

Patrick
Charlottesville, Virginia

 

Hello,

Please check the article, here you will find how to change file associations:

http://kb.parallels.com/en/5690

In general in case you want to open the file with Mac application:

save the file -> right click on the file-> get info->open with -> other (in case the application is not in list) after the file should be open with Mac aaplication.