Best practices to debug broken OpenXML word document in C# generation

Question

I'm generating a MS Word document with OpenXml package in C#. Many times I've seen this erorr message:

This error message is pretty useless: all it says the problem is in footer. Most of the times it says the error is on line 1, char 1.

I usually find the problem, but it takes too much time by going back and forth.

Are there any tools/techniques that can help with debugging such errors? Show a better error, like you are trying to add a Text outwith of a Run, or something like that?

Answer 1

After poking a bit more online, I found tools that eased the pain. Even made a blog post about it: http://tech.trailmax.info/2014/04/validating-of-openxml-generated-documents-or-the-file-cannot-be-opened-because-there-are-problems-with-contents/

The basics are here:

1. There is OpenXmlValidator class. Use it like this: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/bb497334%28v=office.15%29.aspx
2. There is Open Xml Package Explorer for VSCode - use it for manual tweaking of your stuff and slightly better error messages.

If you know other(better) ways, please let me know!