Drop list in Drawing bar not working in Word 2003

[Nedo]

When I open a doc file in Word 2003 by double-clicking it, I cannot use the
drawing bar: the bar is correctly displayed but when I click on most of the
icons that should have a drop-down list (Draw, Autoshapes, Fill color...),
the list does not appear.
If I open the same file by: starting Word, choosing the Open menu and
selecting the file (instead of double clicking the file), everything in the
drawing bar works fine.
How can I solve this?
thx