Converting XML document into Word

Yes.

Using the "Open" dialog, Word can open any xml file you want. Then using the "Save As" dialog, you can save the result to a Word docx.

If that is useful is another question. It will depend a bit on what your input was. Most likely you will need some kind of xslt transforming your structured data into a normal Word document. Of course, if your xml is already some type of WordProcessingML, that might happen automatically on opening.

Have 546KB XML Word docx file that takes forever to open, to edit, to save, to do anything.  Is the file too big? What is the problem? File was created in Word 2007 and has XML Formatting. I have saved it as a docx file but this does not help. Any little edit takes five or six minutes to execute. Running i7 processor, 256 SSD with 32GB of memory. Need help. I have 64 bit MSOffice with Word 2013. Even smaller files take forever to edit.

I'm trying to do the same thing, and found a solution that talked about copying all of the XML document and using Paste Special to get it into the Word doc, then selecting an option for HTML. But my version of Word that's in the new Windows 8 computer I just bought doesn't have that option. Either of the ones it does have under Paste Special just yield an identical XML formatted document of code. Here are a couple lines of code from the document I'm trying to convert:

<?xml version="1.0"?>

<sl:document xmlns:sfa="http://developer.apple.com/namespaces/sfa" xmlns:sf="http://developer.apple.com/namespaces/sf" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:sl="http://developer.apple.com/namespaces/sl" sl:version="72007061400" sfa:ID="SLPublicationModel-0" sl:generator="slingshot" sl:app_build_date="Jan 23 2009, 11:35:15"><sl:version-history><sl:number sfa:number="2004042200" sfa:type="i"/><sl:number sfa:number="2004060800" sfa:type="i"/><sl:number sfa:number="2004061600" sfa:type="i"/><sl:number sfa:number="2004062200" sfa:type="i"/><sl:number sfa:number="2004062900" sfa:type="i"/><sl:number sfa:number="2004072200" sfa:type="i"/><sl:number sfa:number="2004091600" sfa:type="i"/><sl:number sfa:number="2004093000" sfa:type="i"/><sl:number sfa:number="2005091000" sfa:type="i"/><sl:number sfa:number="2005091200" sfa:type="i"/><sl:number sfa:number="2005140600" sfa:type="i"/><sl:number sfa:number="72006110200" sfa:type="q"/><sl:number sfa:number="72006110901" sfa:type="q"/><sl:number sfa:number="72006111601" sfa:type="q"/><sl:number sfa:number="72007010801" sfa:type="q"/><sl:number sfa:number="72007012700" sfa:type="q"/><sl:number sfa:number="72007061400" sfa:type="q"/></sl:version-history><sl:publication-info><sl:decimalTab><sl:string sfa:string="."/></sl:decimalTab><sl:kSFWPHasBodyProperty><sl:number sfa:number="1" sfa:type="c"/></sl:kSFWPHasBodyProperty><sl:SLSaveQuickLookPreviewProperty><sl:number sfa:number="0" sfa:type="c"/></sl:SLSaveQuickLookPreviewProperty><sl:SLLastModifiedLocaleProperty><sl:string sfa:string="en_US"/></sl:SLLastModifiedLocaleProperty><sl:SLCreationLocaleProperty><sl:string sfa:string="en_US"/></sl:SLCreationLocaleProperty><sl:SLCopyTemplateAssetsProperty><sl:number sfa:number="0" sfa:type="c"/></sl:SLCopyTemplateAssetsProperty><sl:kSFWPHyphenationZoneProperty><sl:number sfa:number="18" sfa:type

Any suggestions?

Well, I tried that and there was an unspecified error line 2. So I looked at it with an XML viewer and saw that line two is referencing MAC and not PC so I guess my bigger question is....Is there a way to convert an XML file that looks to be written for MAC to a PC based word document?  I am sort of laughing right now because I feel like the odds are working against me. Thanks for any help if possible.

Hi Willy

This sort of depends on exactly what kind of document this is. XML covers a pretty wide range of things...

Could you perhaps copy a few lines of what you see in a Text Editor or XML viewer and paste it into a reply?

What are you expecting when you open this file in Word? Are you expecting it to show you a "document"?

Based on your original question, my expectation would be that you're expecting to see something like you do in the XML Editor. And with Word 2007 I'd expect that only if you haven't got Word 2007 installed with the post-January updates for North America, which removes XML from the user interface (due to a court decision).

I'd only expect a "document" if the file had been saved in Word 2003 (Windows) as an XML file, or in the new *.docx file format. If you're seeing "MAC" in there, that's probably not the case. Question is, though, whether this is just an instruction for Internet Explorer, or whether the basic XML is totally different. Do you know what program created the document? Do you have contact with the person?

Cindy Meister, VSTO/Word MVP