Unspecified Error, word/document.xml, Line:2, Column: 0

After a first 'header' line, the second line is very long and comprises the bulk of the DOCX's content and formatting. You need to turn on Word Wrap to see it properly. If you have 350 pages, the shear bulk of the content will likely start swimming in front of your eyes very quickly.

There is a hotfix for Word 2010 that deals directly with the unspecified error issue. You can find it here:

Description of the Word 2010 hotfix package (Word-x-none.msp): August 13, 2013

If you would like someone to attempt repair on your document, you will need to upload a copy of your damaged DOCX to a public file area like SkyDrive, DropBox  or Google Drive and post the location to the publicly shared file back here.

Please try to upload a copy that has not already been subjected to repair attempts as previous attempts may have stripped content that was recoverable with a manual edit of the internal components configuration files.

See if this helps:

End Tag - unspecified error Location: Part: /word/document.xml, Line: 2, Column: 0

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2817583

There are 2 “end tag” type errors. They have different causes and different fixes.

This one can be identified by the “**Line: 2, Column: 0”**in the error messge. This problem can be fixed by applying the hotfix in KB2817583.

The other one lists a LARGE column number “Line: 2, Column: 100001”. This type of error requires manual editing to place the missing End Tag into the file. Described below

One Person reported being able to fix this sort of problem simply by doing a File / Open and save in Libre Office.

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If the above tips don't help, this is a partial answer, until Jeeped can fill in the blanks.

When you try to open the DOCX file in Word, the error message should say there is an error in "Line 2 character ####", #### usually being a very large number of characters.

If you use Notepad that ships with Windows you will not see column numbers. You have to download and install the NotePad++ program he suggested (or some other similar editing tool). I tried MS Word also, but the "column" count doesn't work, and character count would also give you the wrong number.

In general there are 2 types of XML "tags", open and paired.  XML tags are indicated by angle braces <> surrounding a descriptive text tag.  The open ones just have a single tag that starts the feature, the tags you are having problems with are paired.  The end of the pair is indicated by a "/", ie starts with: <paired tag> and ends with: </paired tag>.   The problem you are having is that one of the end tags is lost or placed in the wrong order.  The tag at the column mentioned in the error message is just the first place that Word cannot reconcile the tag pairs.  Unfortunately the actual error is some undefined point before that. The trick is finding it.   I copied this earlier answer from Jeeped:

<snip Jeeped>

I don’t think that anyone can completely stop editing equations, but pre-planning them should avoid unnecessary edits.

While I have no concrete, reproducible evidence that editing equations is a cause, I have made these empirical observations:

·      I cannot state precisely what many of the DOCX XML tags do, but basic XML syntax rules would suggest that code like:

                  <m:oMath><m:e><m:ctrlPr/></m:e></m:oMath>

... does nothing at all since it closes everything it opens and offers no content. It looks to me that this is a result of deleting one or more characters from an equation.

·      While Word 2010 reports these as a problem at:

                 Line: 2  Column: 0

... Word 2007 will still report the actual position, e.g.:

                 Line: 2  Column: 2726981

I keep a copy of Word 2007 side-by-side Word 2010 for no other purpose. It’s the only Office 2007 program on my computer. This seems like it is actually a step backwards from a resolution since Word 2010 no longer seems to be able to parse its own error.

·      Whether the syntax is truly useless and non-effective for any intent or purpose is actually beside the point. The syntax passes conformity tests and the DOCX should launch. Why an 85 page document is ‘broken’ due to a few empty XML formatting tags while retaining legal syntax structure is beyond me.

·      I try to pass along the area that the problem was in and several times people have remarked that the area I report was the place they were last making modifications/deletions to equations (not additions) when the no-load corruption occurred.

·      When no indication from the OP is offered on what was worked on last, the Line: 2 Column: 0 corruption often comes within a formula at the very end of the unfinished Word/Document.xml file and it may be inferred that this was the last place being worked upon.

·      The corrupt DOCX files I’ve worked on are very commonly at the last stages of development with a large complex document. While there couldn’t be a worse time for a corruption to appear, it would seem that small edits to existing content are causing it and not large scale new content generation.

Not one of these points is a definitive ‘smoking gun’, but put together they seem to indicate formula editing and not formula writing as a cause for the Line: 2 Column: 0 corruption. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is most often a duck.

</snip>

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Here is another set of instructions I have copied that may help you:

Let me fix it myself

If you are familiar with editing XML, you can try to fix the problem yourself by correcting the sequence of the mismatched oMath tags in the document. See the following example:

Incorrect tags:

<mc:AlternateContent>

<mc:Choice Requires=”wps”>

<m:oMath>

…

</mc:AlternateContent>

</m:oMath>

Correct tags:

<m:oMath>

<mc:AlternateContent>

<mc:Choice Requires=”wps”>

…

</mc:AlternateContent>

</m:oMath>

Note: You will have to use an application such as Notepad to edit the XML.

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Manual Technique

<snip>  A DOCX document is actually a .ZIP file that contains many internal components. There is an internal folder called word which will always contain a document.xml file. This file is the basis of the document’s layout and content.

Assuming that the DOCX archive structure has not been corrupted, it can be opened in an archive utility. I use WinRAR for this. Once opened in WinRAR, you can drill down into the word folder and see the document.xml file. I use Notepad++ as a text editing tool and have the .xml file extension associated with this program so i can simply double-click document.xml in WinRAR to open an editing session.

Notepad++ has cursor positioning in the right-hand side of the status bar and finding the position of the error (supplied by a failed open in Word) is pretty straightforward. I look for empty formatting tags first and only remove content if removing empty tags does not allow the document to be opened. I try to note existing content in the area that I make modifications in order that I can supply position reference information to the owner of the DOCX.

When editing, I assume the philosophy that less is more. My target is to get the document to open in Word with as little modification as possible and let the original owner of the DOCX make any necessary adjustments.

I should mention that after making a change to word/document.xml you need to save it in Notepad++ then go to WinRAR and acknowledge that you want to update the file in the DOCX archive. Once the archive is updated, you can attempt to open the DOCX in Word to see if your efforts are successful.

WinRAR                               Notepad++                           </snip>

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Further Fixes

The Fix it solution in this article should let you recover your Word document. However, the symptoms will reappear when you make any further edits to the document unless the core problem in the structure of the document is resolved.

To try to correct the core problem, follow one of these workarounds:

Install Office 2010 Service Pack 1

Office 2010 Service Pack 1 resolves this issue for new files. It will also prevent the problem from recurring with any files that were recovered with the Fix it solution in this article.

To download Office 2010 Service Pack 1, follow the steps provided in this Microsoft knowledge base article:

2460049 - Description of Office 2010 SP1

Grouping Objects

The steps provided work best under Word 2010:

o After you open the recovered document, turn on the Selection pane. This can be found in the Home tab of the ribbon. The editing group of the Home tab has a dropdown button named Select.

o Click the Select button, and then click Selection Pane...

o Press the Ctrl button on your keyboard and then click each text box in the selection pane.

o Click the Group button under the Format tab. This will group all the objects together.

o As soon as you have all objects grouped on each page, save the document under a new name.

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Save the document in the .RTF file format

The steps provided work for both Word 2007 and Word 2010:

o After you open the recovered document, click File and select Save (for Word 2007 click the Office button and select Save As)

o In the Save As dialog box, click “Save as type:” dropdown and select Rich Text format (*.rtf).

o Click Save.

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Click to view this blog for more information about this issue.

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Manual Fix

XML Maker V1.1 is free. It will allow you to open the document.xml file and edit it. It also marks errors and warnings.  I just didn’t have much luck working with it.

A poster used XML Maker V2.1 (US$125, 30day free trial, enough for average person to fix a file)

Notepad ++ is a good, free editor for this type of task

·      Make a copy of the file

·      Rename the copy from DOCX to ZIP

·      Open … .ZIP/word/document.xml in notepad

·      Copy the contents of the file to clipboard

·      Open Word

·      Paste a copy of the copied XML into Word

·      (optional) the XML is one long string too hard to read, you can replace some tags, with that tag plus a para mark to break up the text to make it more people readable.

·      Open an XML validator, ie this site on the internet: http://www.w3schools.com/xml/xml\_validator.asp

·      Paste another copy of the XML into the “Syntax Check Your XML” input window

·      Click on “validate” button

·      Copy the missing tag, ie </mc:Fallback>  (yours will be different)

·      Return to word Find: mc:Fallback>  (without the </ so you find both open and closing tags).  Repeat find until you hit 2 open tags in a row.  Then you just have to figure out where to put the closing tag between them.  Look for other tags before and after a proper closing tag so you can match the problem area to a good area.

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I am curious to know how you can see those tags? Where do you open the document to fix it???

Hi Petille007,

A DOCX document is actually a .ZIP file that contains many internal components. There is an internal folder called word which will always contain a document.xml file. This file is the basis of the document's layout and content.

Assuming that the DOCX archive structure has not been corrupted, it can be opened in an archive utility. I use WinRAR for this. Once opened in WinRAR, you can drill down into the word folder and see the document.xml file. I use Notepad++ as a text editing tool and have the .xml file extension associated with this program so i can simply double-click document.xml in WinRAR to open an editing session.

Notepad++ has cursor positioning in the right-hand side of the status bar and finding the position of the error (supplied by a failed open in Word) is pretty straightforward. I look for empty formatting tags first and only remove content if removing empty tags does not allow the document to be opened. I try to note existing content in the area that I make modifications in order that I can supply position reference information to the owner of the DOCX.

When editing, I assume the philosophy that kess is more. My target is to get the document to open in Word with as little modification as possible and let the original owner of the DOCX make any necessary adjustments.

I should mention that after making a change to word/document.xml you need to save it in Notepad++ then go to WinRAR and acknowledge that you want to update the file in the DOCX archive. Once the archive is updated, you can attempt to open the DOCX in Word to see if your efforts are successful.

WinRAR

Notepad++

HI Jeep i was trying to do as you have explained in this post, however i have encounterd two problems, first of all when i open document.xml in notepad it has just two lines, secondly you say "finding the position of the error (supplied by a failed open in Word) is pretty straightforward"   however how do i find line 2 and column 0 as it doesnot exist, thirdly i dont really know XML , so how to tell where an empty tag exists?? kindly help me i have to sublitt a project of 350 pages in a days time and suddenly i am getting this error

I'm glad to hear you got sorted out. Thank you for your kind words and remember to backup, backup and backup again. Avoid working to/from any memory stick or other removable memory device at all costs and good luck on your doctorate!