converting word documents to a newer version

It's Microsoft 365 and will continue to be as long as you keep renewing the subscription. For now, the feature set is similar to that of Office 2019, but M365 continues to be updated regularly with new features, whereas the feature set of perpetual-license versions such as 2019 is fixed; only security updates are issued.

Sounds like you need to Activate your Office 365 Installation.

Show us a screen shot of the right click menu when you have some text selected.

On the new computer, with what application did you open the documents before you purchased Office 365?

How did you open the documents then, and how are you now trying to open them after installing Office 365?

If you copied the documents to the local drive, that is where they will now be. They will NOT now be located in OneDrive just because you installed Office 365!

If you open a document and select the text that you want to copy, when you right click with the mouse, do you see the right click menu containing Cut and Copy as the first two items? If you then click on Copy or use CTRL+c and then move the where you want the copied text to appear and either right click and then click on Paste, or use CTRL+v, what happens?

365 should have no problem opening files created in 2010. But there are some "security" settings that may be "protecting" you from the older file format.

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Do you see any message beside the file name in the application title bar? Or below it?

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One message you will see for sure is "Compatibility Mode". That simply means that you have opened a file in an older format that does not support all of the features in the application.

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But I'm wondering if a setting in the "Trust Center", that is one of the "Options", is also causing you problems. Although the title of the book is "Protected View", I doubt that particular one is your problem.

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Download this free ebook. It describes the "Trust Center" and the impact of the various settings.

Protectected View: Security and Privacy For Microsoft Office 2010 Usershttps://web.archive.org/web/20190429134653/https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/microsoft_press/2012/02/29/free-ebook-security-and-privacy-for-microsoft-office-users/
~~http://blogs.msdn.com/b/microsoft\_press/archive/2012/02/29/free-ebook-security-and-privacy-for-microsoft-office-users.aspx~~ ~~~~ -
Chapter 2  Alice Downloads a Document
   Working with Protected View
   Inside Protected View
   Configuring Protected View
   Exiting Protected View
   Other Triggers for Protected View
   Understanding Trust
   Trusted Documents
   Trusted Locations
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! What Is “Compatibility Mode” in Microsoft Office?
https://www.howtogeek.com/256269/what-is-compatibility-mode-in-microsoft-office/
When you open a document created in an older version of Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPoint in a modern version of Office, you may see “Compatibility Mode” appear after the name of the document in the titlebar. This changes the way the document appears and prevents you from using some modern features.
This normally isn’t something you should worry about–Office does the right thing to ensure old documents work properly and you can continue to collaborate with people using older versions of Office. But you can leave Compatibility Mode, if you like.
.  *  What Is Compatibility Mode?
.  *  Find Out Which Compatibility Mode a Document Is Using
.  *  Update a Document and Leave Compatibility Mode
.  *  What To Do If New Documents Are in Compatibility Mode
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! Converting documents to a newer formathttps://support.office.com/en-us/article/converting-documents-to-a-newer-format-34ec742e-f0f9-4d95-bbe3-3ee8e30a86fa ****
When you're using a version of Word that's newer than the version used to create your document, you typically see Compatibility Mode in the title bar. Compatibility Mode temporarily disables new or enhanced Word features so that the document can still be edited by people using the earlier version of Word. Compatibility Mode also preserves the layout of the document.
Converting the document to the newer format lets you use newer features, but conversion might create difficulties for people who are using earlier versions of Word to edit the document. If you convert the document, they might not be able to work with certain portions of the document that were created in the newer versions of Word.
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! How To Update an Old Word Document to Latest Word Format            2019 10 04
https://helpdeskgeek.com/office-tips/convert-older-office-documents-to-newer-format/
If you want to use the modern features of Word 2019 or Office 365, you will need to upgrade your Word documents format if they are based on an older version of the Word software. Upgrading the file format ensures that you are able to use the new formatting and other tools available in the latest versions of the software.
Converting an old Word document to a newer version only takes a few clicks.
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Batch converter for Word 97-2003 DOC, RTF and Works WPS format to Word 2007/2016 DOCX/M formatshttp://www.gmayor.com/Works\_Batch\_Converter.htm ****Some time ago I was asked to produce a batch converter for Works WPS format documents to DOCX format, and this page hosted the results of that exercise. Since then I have been asked a number of times to make the converter work for Word 97-2003 DOC format. The add-in has been completely re-written to permit either conversion. .

If these docs were located on the local PC and you have installed 365 they will now be located on OneDrive, and in internet explorer, the shortcut on the taskbar these docs will now be located under the OneDrive folder

You simply select a doc and double click to open. There is no convert process required or needed

Or Start Word>Open>Browse