Word output won't complete

[jacortes]

I am receiving the following internal error when I try to output to Word. Any ideas?

Generating final output...
Saving word output...
Generation of output can not be completed.
Word encountered an error processing the XML file [topic name]. Ambiguous cell mapping encountered. Possible missing paragraph element. <p> elements are required before every </tc>
Location: Line: 48, Column: 1210

Three notes:
1. This happens at the end of the build process after all topics have processed.
2. I have deleted the [topic name] in question and rebuilt. The error just occurs at the top level topic in the TOC no matter what the topic is.
3. I have opened the [topic name] the error references in a text editor. The topic in question does not have the line number referenced (e.g., doesn't have line 48).


Any help is appreciated...

[LTinker68]

Do you still get the error if you create a new TOC file, add a few topics, and associate the TOC to the output then build?

[jacortes]

Do you still get the error if you create a new TOC file, add a few topics, and associate the TOC to the output then build?

Just tried it. No, I did not get the error when I just added a few topics to a new TOC, associated the new TOC, and built. (You are The Queen of Flare, Lisa, so I'm sure you have a reason for this witchery. )

However, if I just take the old content from a previous TOC and drag it into the new TOC, I get the error again. Can you not use TOC items in new TOCs??



Hmm...I am going to rebuild the TOC from scratch, dragging in the topics one at a time and see if that works. I'll report back...



Thanks, Lisa!

[jacortes]

Problem solved. Chalk this one up to poor error reporting.

So the problem didn't actually have anything to do with the TOC. As far as I know, whether you build your TOC from scratch or borrow TOC items from another TOC does not matter. Your output to Word should still run.

My error occurred because Word does not know what to do with a mini-TOC tucked in a table cell. All of my chapters start with a mini-TOC and I put them in a table cell so I could customize the look. When I push to PDF, they look great. When I push to Word, word choked. The easy solution was to create a condition and conditionalize out the mini-TOC.

Ambiguous cell mapping encountered. Possible missing paragraph element. <p> elements are required before every </tc>

This makes sense now.

Word encountered an error processing the XML file [topic name].

This still does not. My table and mini-TOC is in a snippet and the snippet precedes 10 different chapter-beginning topics. For some reason the [topic name] thrown in the error was defaulting to the first topic in the TOC (cover page). When I deleted the cover page from the TOC, it just grabbed the next topic (legal notice). Obviously neither topic had the mini-TOC.


Thanks again, Lisa.

[LTinker68]

Make sure you submit a bug report about that at http://www.madcapsoftware.com/bugs/submit.aspx. Actually, submit two bug reports -- one about the problem Word has with mini-TOCs in table cells, and one about the poorly worded error message.

What exactly was the formatting you wanted to try on the mini-TOC that required the table? Perhaps there's another way to get the same thing without using a table (especially since I think the mini-TOC is automatically built as a table in the output, so perhaps the problem was a table in a table).