Share via

Access error message is vague

Anonymous
2011-03-02T19:42:24+00:00

I get the following error in Access when trying to export an excel file "The specification XML failed to validate against the schema.There is an error in the following line of the XML document: A semi colon character was expected"

What does this mean?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Access | For home | Windows

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments No comments

Answer accepted by question author

Anonymous
2011-03-02T21:34:46+00:00

What's shown as "the following line of the XML document". Odd are it contains an encoding of some special character (like & for ampersand, < for less than sign and so on) that's missing the terminating semi colon.

Was this answer helpful?

9 people found this answer helpful.
0 comments No comments

4 additional answers

Sort by: Most helpful
  1. Anonymous
    2011-03-02T21:55:28+00:00

    That was the clue.  I had an & ampersand in my file name.

    Removed it and it exported.

    Never would have thought of that from the message given.

    Thanks!!!!

    Was this answer helpful?

    10+ people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments No comments
  2. Anonymous
    2012-10-03T20:52:15+00:00

    Thanks!  That was it!  No more &&&

    Was this answer helpful?

    4 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments No comments
  3. Anonymous
    2011-03-02T21:56:54+00:00

    Checked this a few times thought I had selected the wrong doc type. But still get the same message.

    Thanks for the response though.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments
  4. Anonymous
    2011-03-02T21:51:21+00:00

    are you sure you are export as Excel and not xml?

    if you are exporting into excel, but the file has user added xml schema, thats the issue but i am not familiar enough with those issues to help further.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments