The name in the end tag of the element must match the element type in the start tag. Location: Part:/word/document.xml, Line: 2, Column:646910.

Hi Jeeped,

What you have found was, indeed, the error; this is a new type of corruption that is starting to appear - Microsoft have told me nothing has changed but something, somewhere, certainly appears to have done - and well done for fixing it - especially in Notepad; the more people who can do this the better.

The correct construct looks like this (apologies in advance for the formatting - I don't see any tools in this forum):

<mc:AlternateContent>

    <mc:Choice requires = "wps">

        Word 2010 xml

    </mc:Choice>

    <mc:Fallback>

        Word 2007 xml

    </mc:Fallback>

</mc:AlternateContent>

When Word 2010 reads the xml it reads the "wps" Choice section - the Word 2010 graphics format code - and ignores the rest. Earlier versions of Word will read whatever is in the Fallback section (which should be a Word 2007 format graphic) and ignore the Choice.

Requires="wps" does not actually _mean_ Word 2010, but in this case it implies it. The contents of the two lots of xml are, typically, a <drawing> structure for 2010, and a <pict> structure for 2007.

When there is no fallback, the document will open in earlier versions, but there will simply be nothing in place of the image. I can not reconstruct the required pict structure - although it would be fun to try - and I don't think Yves can either, so we add a basic Fallback construct containing a text placeholder, so that anyone opening the document in Word 2007 is notified that something is missing.

Ideally the document owner will fix the problem once they can open the document but, unless they are running multiple versions of Word - which isn't common for normal users - it will be very hard for them to know whether they have done so.

@Yves,

Before I start, please let me reaffirm both my admiration and respect for what you have done in the area of repairing errant .DOCX's to a readable content.

With that said and getting back to programmer mode, I used nothing higher than Excel and Notepad to resolve the issue.

After unRARing the .DOCX, I found that word\document.xml would not open in Excel and gave the same error that was stated in the OP, so I was back to Notepad.

All of my original efforts were directed at the <w:r> tag ( start and /finish). These efforts went nowhere, so I started looking for the <mc:AlternateContent> tag.

With a little effort I found that the 13th <mc:AlternateContent><mc:Choice Requires="wps"> actually ended with

</mc:Choice></w:r>

... instead of this,

</mc:Choice></mc:AlternateContent></w:r>

... so I fixed it.

I know that this is programmable through reiterative nested loops, but I do not have a fail-safe solution just yet.

I think you're probably right, Yves.

I have also fixed this document - see the other thread about it: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2010-word/the-name-in-the-end-tag-of-the-element-must-match/822aa574-7151-e011-8dfc-68b599b31bf5