Developer Troubleshooting

This document contains a small list of know-how related to dealing with the OOXML format.

XML namespace aliases

Problem: XML files must not contains xml namespace aliases starting with xml prefix.

Example: Bad alias: xml123, good alias: a123.

Solution: Use different alias names.

• LibreOffice: OK
• Word: will not open file.

Ignorable attribute

Problem: The Ignorable attribute must contain valid XML namespace aliases.

It is a problem because many XML processors hide the aliases after parsing the XML document.

• LibreOffice: OK
• Word: will not open file.

Solution: keep track of and reuse the xml ns alias names.

See also: Requires attribute of the Choice tag.

XML space attribute

Problem: space symbols disappear from the document.

Solution: Use the xml:space="preserve" attribute consequently.

Wrong relationships file

Problem: LibreOffice will not open an OOXML file if the relationships file contains an XML namespace alias.

Solution: Generate relationships files without XML namespace aliases (enforce the use of default XML namespace alias).

• Word: unknown effect
• LibreOffice: will not open file

Invalid zip entries

Problem: The zip entry paths mut not contain a ../ part.

• LibreOffice: OK
• Word: will not open file.

OOXML Model

 +-------------+
 | _rels/.rels | < this is the entry point
 +-------------+
        |
        v
 +-------------------+   +------------------------------+
 | word/document.xml |===| word/_rels/document.xml.rels |
 +-------------------+   +------------------------------+
                           |             |       |
                           v             |       v
                +--------------------+   |   +------------------+   +-----------------------------+
                | word/numbering.xml |   |   | word/header1.xml |===| word/_rels/header1.xml.rels | * references images
                +--------------------+   |   +------------------+   +-----------------------------+
                 > shared across all     v
                                        +-----------------+
                                        | word/styles.xml | > shared across all
                                        +-----------------+