Word 2007, Open XML - embedding an image

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.