Error "SAXException..." when opening docx document

[mikekaganski]

This kind of problem can repeat at any time, because this is a whole class of different problems, that simply have similar superficial manifestation, but different internal causes, in an incredibly complex machinery of general-purpose word processing witchcraft, multiplied by magic of conversion during importing/exporting of external file formats.

And I keep fixing documents here because of two reasons: (1) I know how to do that (and I don’t hide the knowledge, but it’s really technical, so the times when I explained it, mostly didn’t help anyone); and (2) sometimes that allows to build understanding of the currently seen problem, to find a reproducer and then to fix it. If the problem happens, I try to do what I can to help people by things that I can do best (and I don’t feel tired of doing just that).

The problem usually happens in LibreOffice at export to DOCX time. It’s usually not the other party with MS Office. As said, yes, you won’t have an insurance that this won’t happen. But having your data in ODT (and only creating copies in DOCX) would generally safeguard you from data loss (but not from time waste when this happens, sure).

[akgirl]

Thank you. I am sorry to make you use many words, but I appreciate the explanation. I would not understand the technical part of this as you do. But knowing it is probably on my end when saving helps me avoid at least that part of the problem. I appreciate your tech savvy. and I do not have to repeat hours of edits! Blessings!

[peasmould1]

Hello Mike,

I hate to ask - you’ve clearly been so helpful to so many people already. But please is there any possible chance you could very kindly repair [or lead me to instructions for how to repair] another “docx” (saved in libre office 7.3.2.2) that has this same problem? [SAXException: [word/document.xml line 2]: Opening and ending tag mismatch: sdtContent line 2 and ins]

It came to me as a “docx” and I made lots of edits and comments and saved as a “docx”, so I have no “odt” back-up. The crazy thing is, I saved it once, edited one section and deleted the other sections and saved again so I could send the one section to some folks. That smaller “docx” document still opens fine and shows all the changes. After that, I opened the full version saved as “docx” that had edits throughout, it also opened fine. Then I did a bunch more edits, was finished, so saved again (alas under the same name). And now that edited full document will not open. It contains at least five hours of careful thought that I would struggle to repeat :’(

So please, I wonder, is there any way you might possibly be able to help?

Cheers,
John

[mikekaganski]

@peasmould1 you look like forgot to provide the document itself.

[peasmould1]

Hi Mike,
That’s right. I wanted to ask first to make sure it was ok. Here it is. Thank you very much for trying to fix it! Here it is:

Google Docs wird geladen

Cheers,
John
PS Another odd thing, trying to attach it - my file shows as 1.5MB, but this system says I can’t attach it becuse it is too big. It is larger than 4 MB! So I’ve put it on a google drive for you. Thanks again.

[mikekaganski]

https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=1uIivyMyIPZ_V9FMacbAwLUo3wZL5Hlf6

[peasmould1]

Wonderful! I can read it again. Thank you so much, Mike