hey liz, here's how i got it to work:

~right-click the .rtf link and select "copy shortcut"
~open your word program (microsoft, notepad, etc.) and go to file>open
~press ctrl+v to paste the address of the file in the "file name" line, and click "open"

hopefully this will work for you! i had a very confused time of figuring this out, so you're not alone. :)