How to view xml of word document?

Question

I have been assigned to learn about xml and change and modify some documents at my job. I know nothing about xml, but I thought I would start by asking the Microsoft community.

Answer 1

What exactly are changes and modifications that you are being asked to make? Accessing the xml components of the document is almost certainly NOT the best way to do whatever that is!

A docx Word file is actually a zip archive and if you extract the components of the file from the archive you will see

and if you open the word folder, you will that it contains the following files and folders, the document.xml being the file that contains the text and formatting of the document

Answer 2

Create a copy of a word document (*.docx or *.docm).

Change the extension of the file from .docx or .docm to .zip in Windows Explorer.

Windows will issue a warning:

Click Yes.

The file will now be a compressed archive; you can expand/open it. There will be .xml files and subfolders with more .xml files in it.

You can view the .xml files in your browser, or in any text editor such as Notepad or Notepad++.

Answer 3

Thanks for your help!

These are word docs downloaded straight from Microsoft Business Central. What I was told to do was modify them to match the company logo, but when I started working on it, copying and pasting was not possible. That's when I learned that xml was needed to modify these certain Business Central documents.

Answer 4

Those graphics are probably locked. Here is my article about locking graphics in XML: OOXML Hacking: Locking Graphics This technique can be used with Word, Excel and PowerPoint on both Windows and macOS.