Is it possible (and prudent) to load Excel and Word onto an external hard drive?

I am new to external memory and as of this moment, I have documents and sheets loaded onto mine. I can access them and edit without trouble.

However, I sometimes open a few at once and noticed that I have to open My Computer each time I want to open up another one. So I thought that I should pose the question before doing something I am unsure of.

Your help is appreciaed. Thank you.

Your external hard drive is only a memory, you can store anything in it as the same way you do in your internal HD, but in order for a program to work (like Office) it has to be installed in the HD drive that you computer uses to boot from, the same HD that has your OS like Vista, XP or else. In other words you can store a copy of Word in the external HD but if you want to use it then you have to install it in your internal HD.

Hope it Helps!