Dear Francesco,

Off the top of my head I don't know what the answer is.  Can you share the files so I can take a look at them?  If you can email me with the original source and the translated sdlxliff that should be adequate.

Dear Paul,

thank you for your reply. I sent you an email this morning. I hope you can help me.

Many thanks in advance

Francesco

Hi Francesco,

I checked the file and the only conclusion I could come to was that there was a problem with the original source file.  So, I opened and repaired the original in MSWord and then pretranslated this file from your SDLXLIFF.  The target seems fine.

If you don’t know how to do this you start up MSWord and you can then open a file with this command:

That’s the best explanation I can find… hopefully this is good for you.  I emailed you the target Word file which opens for me.

Hi Paul,

thank you for your answer and for sending me back the repaired target file (which opens for mee too). 

Though, I don't think the original file was corrupted, since I can open it with MSWord without any problem and even Studio allowed me to open, translate and save it as a target. The problem was then the impossibility to open that target.

Anyway, I tried to apply your solution but I was not able to "open and repair" the source file since I got an error message from my MSWord 2007 saying "MSWord cannot open this file. Do you want to find a converter which can open this file on the Microsoft Office Online Website?" (I'm translating the message from French) and when I click "yes" I'm redirected to the Microfoft site.

But I found another solution that seemed to work for me, at least this time: I opened the source file, copied/pasted the content in a new Word document and saved it. Then, I opened this new source file with Studio, pre-translated it and saved a new target file, which now opens.

The new problem now is that, if I try to open the SDLXLIFF again I get the famous error message "Object reference not set to instance of an object", which pops out very often when working with Word documents containing tables (it occured twice this week...).

Thanks again,

Francesco 

Hi Francesco,

I think there was a problem with the file. Word can often handle a file that has a problem elsewhere.  This is because other tools need to use the information within the file where Word can sometimes ignore things. The end result being the target can be affected adversely to the point even Word can't use it.

I think the fact you were unable to repair the file yourself, and that copying the contents to a new one worked, suggests it wasn't right in the first place.

The object reference error is hard to nail down without the files, and a copy of the specific stack trace associated with your obj ref error.  It's a generic error coming from .Net and not necessarily Studio so we often don't get enough information back to deduce exactly what caused it.

If you have the source file and can send a stack trace we can take a look... if you can reliably reproduce the problem of course.

Hi Paul,

Thank you for your answer.

As far as the "object reference error" is concerned, it is really driving me crazy and not allowing me to work... In the meanwhile I have had once again (for the third time in 10 days) the same error message, when trying to open a .xliff file prepared by a fellow translator (who can work on it without any problem) based on a word document containing tables, once again.

So, it's 3 times in 10 days, with 3 different word documents (all of them containing tables) coming from 3 different clients. Do you have any idea of the origin of the problem and how can I solve it so that I can properly work again? I don't know how to get a stack trace, but I can send you the xliff file if it can be of any help.

Maybe I should open another thread for this problem.

Thank you very much in advance.

Francesco

I replied in your other post...

Hi Francesco,

I have faced a similar problem when using MS Word 2013 and 2016 when dealing with an older *.doc (not *.docx) file and I have found a sort of solution here.

I hope this might help you.

Claudio