How to Fix XML Parsing Error in Microsoft Word Document?

Updated on October 28, 2022

“Yesterday night, while I was working on a Word file it crashed suddenly and I had to close it forcefully. After refreshing my system, I tried to open a Word file to resume my work but got an error message that ‘sorry, you cannot open word document XXX.docx because there is a problem with its contents. The below error message has two options called OK and details. I clicked on ‘details’ in order to get information about the error message. However, I found another error message that said ‘unspecified error Part: /word/document.xml, Line 2, Column: 0’. I would greatly appreciate it if someone has any solution for my problem”

Sometimes at the time of working on the Microsoft tool, it might suddenly crash and upon restarting it, you may get an XML error message that makes entire contents inaccessible.

What Causes the XML Parsing Error with Microsoft Word?

Windows update used for parsing is not installed – This is by far the most common problem. This particular update should be included among the WSUS, but for some reason, Windows Update does not install it on all machines, which produces the XML Parsing Error.

An SVG graphic included in the document is not parsed correctly – This problem might also occur because of the XMLlite, which returns an out of memory error code unexpectedly during the parsing of an SVG graphic.

Encoding errors inside the XML code belonging to the document – Most likely, the XML file contains encoding errors that the Word editor is unable to understand.

If you’re currently struggling to resolve the XML Parsing Error try the below-mentioned troubleshooting methods.

How to Fix XML Parsing Error In Word?

Method 1: Using Built-in Options

One can use the built-in method to fix this issue and view a Word file. Below provided is the procedure to repair XML errors in Word file:

• First of all right click on the Word file and select Rename option
• Rename the Word file along with extension to ZIP file format
• You will find XML document in ZIP file. Open the XML file using Notepad
• In order to find which element is causing problem with your Word file, you have to format XML content using plug-in
• Choose Pretty Print(XML only – with line breaks). This will format content of XML
• Now convert back the XML document to ZIP and then change the extension from ZIP to DOCX

After going through these procedures, try to open the DOCX file. You will find some error messages, but when you choose the details option you can view which line has an error. Search for the line in an XML document and then delete the whole tag. Copy XML back into the ZIP file and then rename the extension again to the DOCX file and try to open the document. In case you get another error message, then repeat the process unless the document opens.

Method 2: Resolving the error via Notepad++ and Winrar or Winzip

If the first method was not successful in resolving the issue, it’s very likely that the XML code accompanying your Word document is not according to the XML specification. Most likely, the XML code accompanying the text contains encoding errors. Luckily, the error window will provide you with additional helpful details that will help us to pinpoint the problem more precisely. To be precise, the Location attribute right under the XML parsing error message will point you to the line and column where the faulty code lies. You might notice that the Location attribute points towards a .xml file, while you’re trying to open a word file. Wondering why that is? It’s because the .doc file is actually a .zip file that contains a collection of .xml files. Follow the instructions down below to use Notepad++ and WinRar to resolve the issue and open the Word document without the XML parsing error:

1. Right-click on the document that is causing the error and changes the extension from .doc to .zip. When asked to confirm the extension name change, click Yes to confirm.
2. If the .DOC or .DOCX file is safely converted into a .zip file, you can double-click to open it. You will see a collection of files that you never knew existed before
3. Next, let’s take a look at the error message and see which XML document is causing the error. In our case, the document responsible was document.xml. With this in mind, go ahead and extract the XML file outside the ZIP archive so we can begin editing
4. You can open the XML file with a lot of text editors, but we recommend Notepad++ because it’s reliable and has a code highlight feature that will make things a lot easier for us.
5. Once Notepad++ is installed on your system, right-click on the XML file that you extracted at step 3 and choose Edit with NotePad
6. Next, we’ll need to install a plugin called XML Tools in order to view the correct lines and columns. This will help us identify the error a lot more easily. To do this, go to Plugins (using the ribbon at the top) and then go to Plugin Manager > Show Plugin Manager
7. Then, go to the Available tab, find the XML Tools plugin from the list, select it and press the Install button. Next, restart NotePad++ to allow the plugin to be enforced.
8. Once XML Tools is installed in Notepad++, go to Plugins > XML Tools and click on Pretty print (XML only – with line breaks).
9. Once the file is formatted, go to the line mentioned in the error while keeping in mind the column.

Once the XML file is passed back, rename the file back to what it was (.doc or .docx) and open it again. If the error was resolved correctly, you should have no issues opening the document now. Once the error has been resolved, save the XML file and paste it back in the .ZIP file.

Method 3: Fix XML error in Word File Using Yodot Doc Repair Software

To eliminate all kinds of errors including XML error in Word, you are suggested to download Yodot DOC Repair software on your Windows computer. As this is the Word file repair software, it can completely remove error messages from Word documents and create a healthy copy with its attributes intact with formatting. Even though this software has simple functionality, it can take you out from all sorts of corruption including Macro errors in Word files, Word file encoding errors, error 4605, file permission errors, file association errors, and other issues that make Word documents inaccessible. The application delivers a high degree of scalability by allowing you to repair Word DOC files by yourself without needing any professional help or assistance.

Steps for Repair Word XML error:

• Step 1: Download Yodot DOC Repair software on your computer and install it. Run the utility and select the Word file showing unreadable content error by clicking the Browse button.
• Step 2: Click on the Repair button to scan the Word file and fix Word found an unreadable content error with it.
• Step 3: Once the scan process completes, you can click on “Click Here to preview file” to preview the repaired Word file. In the end, save repaired Word file using the Save option.

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