Question

Do you know what basic information MUST include a paragraph (<w:p/>) in document.xml inside a *.docx document, that specifies an image? I do know there must be:

<a:blip r:embed='rId4' />  

specifing the relationship id, but what else? It’s very hard to find it in Google and experimenting with cutting out tags from a ready document or reading the specification takes a lot of time.

An example with all the required tags would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Word is rather picky concerning the input XML provided. To embed an image, you have to provide quite some information. Here is a simple example:

document.xml

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8' standalone='yes'?> <w:document xmlns:r='http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/relationships'              xmlns:v='urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml'              xmlns:wp='http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/drawingml/2006/wordprocessingDrawing'              xmlns:w='http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/wordprocessingml/2006/main'>   <w:body>     <w:p>       <w:r>         <w:drawing>           <wp:inline distT='0' distB='0' distL='0' distR='0'>             <wp:extent cx='5943600' cy='3717290'/>             <wp:docPr id='1' name='Picture 0' descr='vlcsnap-325726.png'/>             <a:graphic xmlns:a='http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/drawingml/2006/main'>               <a:graphicData uri='http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/drawingml/2006/picture'>                 <pic:pic xmlns:pic='http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/drawingml/2006/picture'>                   <pic:nvPicPr>                     <pic:cNvPr id='0' name='myImage.png'/>                     <pic:cNvPicPr/>                   </pic:nvPicPr>                   <pic:blipFill>                     <a:blip r:embed='rId4'/>                     <a:stretch>                       <a:fillRect/>                     </a:stretch>                   </pic:blipFill>                   <pic:spPr>                     <a:xfrm>                       <a:off x='0' y='0'/>                       <a:ext cx='5943600' cy='3717290'/>                     </a:xfrm>                     <a:prstGeom prst='rect'>                       <a:avLst/>                     </a:prstGeom>                   </pic:spPr>                 </pic:pic>               </a:graphicData>             </a:graphic>           </wp:inline>         </w:drawing>       </w:r>     </w:p>   </w:body> </w:document> 

document.xml.rels

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8' standalone='yes'?> <Relationships xmlns='http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/package/2006/relationships'>   <!-- other relationships go here -->   <Relationship Id='rId4' Type='http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/relationships/image' Target='media/image1.png'/> </Relationships> 

And of course the image must be added to the package at the correct location (media/image1.png)

Since all this is rather complicated I would recommend you to use the OpenXML SDK 2.0 provided by Microsoft or another library, e.g. OpenXML4J. These libraries, especially the one from Microsoft can make your work a lot easier.