Editing documents with ms office online corrupts docs - ms-wopi

We have an office online server build 16.0.8471.8525 (latest and greatest) which we use for displaying and editing word documents through WOPI. When editing a document which has a pretty header and footer representing a formal law document, it gets corrupted. It can be used for editing with no problem with our office server but viewing in it as well as in desktop word is not possible, even desktop word can not repair it.
Editing the same doc in office 365 online or desktop word does not corrupt the file.
Making the same change to the document with our office online server, office 365 online and desktop word produces 3 completely different files in therms of internal xml representation (viewing with Open XML SDK 2.5 for Microsoft Office) and its not trivial to figure out why is the file broken.
I'm struggling to find the correct approach for solving the problem

We recently upgraded to office online server version 16.0.8471.8525 and started seeing corrupted documents, too. As we still have the old version running in our production environment, we were able to experiment and compare a little:
All corrupted documents have in common that they contain some sort of drawing element (for example a very simple rectangle with a color). In the original document this drawing element has its PercentageWidth and PercentageHeight specified as <wp14:pctWidth>0</wp14:pctWidth> and <wp14:pctHeight>0</wp14:pctHeight> respectively. After editing, the document (now corrupt) contains <wp14:pctWidth /> and <wp14:pctHeight />. So empty values.
When setting the value (0) back on these elements, the document can be opened again, but when you try to edit it in OOS, it will get corrupted again :(.
I think this is a bug in Office Online Server, but I hope above details can help you to get a bit further.

Related

Update docvariable or docproperty in Word online

Is ther a way to update docvariable or docproperty of a Word document when opening in the Word online by the microsoft graph API or another API.
I do this in Word for desktop using C# code, but I need to do this in Word online too.
It can't be done in Word on-line. If you had an Office JS add-in you might be able to change document properties (but no DocProperty fields that reflect those values). The Word JS APIs do not access the Document Variables, however.
But you should be able to do it on the closed file (before it's opened in Word on-line, for example) by leveraging the Word Open XML file format. There are numerous libraries to work with it. Microsoft's is the Open XML SDK (free, as a .NET Framework / Visual Studio extension) which can access all content of Office files (except VBA binaries).

Automatically loading Word Task Pane Office Add-in

We are developing a Word Task Pane Office Add-in (not VSTO) for internal organization documents
In Word 2013 (desktop) when we insert the add-in and save the document, when we reopen that document the add-in is automatically loaded.
In Word Online, this behavior is different, the add-in doesn't get automatically loaded. The user has to manually insert the add-in every time the document is opened.
Is there a way to automatically load it in Word Online?
Would running our own Office Web App Server help?
Is there a way to load the add-in through a parameter? (maybe query string?)
Thanks
We have changed the behaviour you describe: starting in January, Word Online add-ins will be persisted in the document just like they are in Word for desktop. So #1 is not supported now but will be soon. Workarounds like #2 and #3 are not available now.
Thanks!
-Michael (Microsoft Program Manager for add-ins)
Thank you for posting this issue and giving us the opportunity to find a resolution. It looks like we are having a temporary issue at present where the Office Add-ins width is getting saved to 3 pixels. We are striving to find a resolution as soon as possible. In the mean time you can try the following workaround
Temporary workarounds:
1.Opening the file in excel client app and saving the file will fix the width issue because we have a minimum width set in excel client app.
2.open the file in open xml editor, locate \xl\webextensions\taskpanes.xml and edit 'width' property of entry to a greater value, say, 300.
After the file is edited in client or excel client, excel client respects the new value and it do NOT go back to value 3. The issue seems to be only repro with the add-ins inserted in excel WAC only.
We will update the article once it is fixed
Thanks,
Sky
Microsoft Program Manager.

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We have an existing web application written in Java. We want to give our users the ability to open a Word document that is stored in our application on the server. So when the user downloads the document from our server, Word pops up and they then can edit this document on the client. Once finished editing the document we would like to give them the ability to save this document automatically back to the server where they retrieved it, by simply selecting on the Word Save icon. Similar to how SharePoint does it.
Seems to me SharePoint would be a good solution for this and they do it very well, but unfortunately we cannot use SharePoint in our architecture.
There also seems to be a lot of server-side possibilities that we can use to upload and open word documents from our server, I feel we can solve these use cases easily.
My big problem is the automatic saving of an edited document by the client back to our server where the document was downloaded
I am not Microsoft proficient to know what the best solution would be.
Should we write a Word AddIn to save to our server?
How do we get the Word AddIn into our users desktops?
Can we embed a Word AddIn into the Word document that is opened on the client?
1.Should we write a Word AddIn to save to our server?
If you don't want to use SharePoint you can develop an add-in where you can implement all the required functionality and much more.
2.How do we get the Word AddIn into our users desktops?
You can develop an installer for the add-in. See Deploying an Office Solution for more information. Also you can use the group policy objects for deploying the software automatically.
3.Can we embed a Word AddIn into the Word document that is opened on the client?
You can develop a document-level add-in, i.e. the code will be run for a specific document only. But you will need to install it as an application level add-in. See Architecture of Document-Level Customizations for more information.

Editing Word Documents from Web Server

I have looked for a solution to this but all I have found are products that are close but not what I need.
We have a program that creates a word document on the fly based on data from our database, and stores it on our server, then the user can download this file to print,email,file away.
I need something that will allow the user to open the existing document from the server, edit it, and save it back to the server.
I need this to be able to work on all browser, so activex isn't a full solution.
This link is a proof of concept of using CKEditor to do what you describe.
The focus is on ensuring that the "long tail" of possible docx content is preserved across the editing process.
For example, take a look at the Microsoft demo docx, which they use to compare their web apps with Google Docs, at
google-documents-vs-word-web-app

Is there a way to get a reference to results after creating word documents using mail merge?

I'm using a VSTO 2010 AddIn to do a Word mail merge with WdMailMergeDestination being set to wdSendToNewDocument. Is there any way to get a reference to the newly created documents or even find out which data row was used to create each one?
Hi Christopher i am working on the same thing and so far i have managed to create an add-in for the outlook. So the Word mail merge completes and the mail in the Outlook outbox folder, right before being sent will attach the attachment of any type.
I am using this for mass scale i am talking about 5000-7000 mails at one go, and the add-in failed me, by attaching to only some emails its like on and off (my guess is the add-in not able to handle the heavy duty). So now i am going a bit further in to the solution by capturing the mailmerge object in the word. (btw i am using i am developing for 2007 should be no problem for 2010 as well)
So far i can suggest you this article that i managed to dig if you have a found a solution please do share tks.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;301659
P.S: I know that there are people selling this kind of software commercially.But its best if homebrewed!