Simply: 

A client has sent me a 20,000 word document: the source and the target, both Word documents. The source is in French target is in English and the job is a "re-read".

By converting all tables to text in both files, then converting all text to tables, then making these two vertical columns in the same Word file, I then made an Excel file.

I tried converting this to tmx using something like Olifant... or was it using something in SDL itself? Can't recall. Half the units failed. Not unexpectedly (since this is SDL) the "error results" failed to be visible.

Then I found an online spot to convert from Excel to tmx. This file is larger and on examination it appears to contain all TUs. Everything (i.e. source and text) appears to be perfectly "aligned".

Now I want to do an EXTREMELY simple thing: produce an sdlxliff (the memory can be a blank one) so I can go through the file segment by segment in SDL. 

I have tried to do this several times ... but to no surprise whatsoever, nothing appears to be able to achieve this. 

Any suggestions?