17.15.1.3 alwaysMergeEmptyNamespace

This element specifies whether custom XML markup specified via the customXml element which has no associated namespace shall be treated as an error and moved into a special error namespace (for the purposes of XML schema validation) when the document is opened. If this element is turned on, when an application determines that the current XML markup is in the empty namespace, those elements shall not automatically be moved into an error namespace.

If this element is not present in a WordprocessingML document than custom XML markup which has no associated namespace shall be treated as an error and moved into a special error namespace when the document is opened.

[Example: Consider a WordprocessingML document which should not automatically flag empty namespace XML as invalid. This requirement would be specified using the following WordprocessingML:

<w:alwaysMergeEmptyNamespace w:val="true"/>

The alwaysMergeEmptyNamespace element’s val attribute has a value of true specifying that custom XML markup in the empty namespace must never be treated as an error. end example]

This element’s content model is defined by the common boolean property definition in 17.17.4.