<alwaysMergeEmptyNamespace> (Do Not Mark Custom XML Elements With No Namespace As Invalid)

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 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: 
<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 shall never be treated as an error. ]

Parent Elements

<settings> (§2.15.1.78)

Attributes

Description

<val> (On/Off Value)

Specifies a binary value for the property defined by the parent XML element.

A value of on, 1, or true specifies that the property shall be explicitly applied. This is the default value for this attribute, and is implied when the parent element is present, but this attribute is omitted.

A value of off, 0, or false specifies that the property shall be explicitly turned off.

<w:… w:val="off"/>

The @val attribute explicitly declares that the property is turned off. ]

The possible values for this attribute are defined by the ST_OnOff simple type (§2.18.67).

The following XML Schema fragment defines the contents of this element:

<complexType name="CT_OnOff">
	<attribute name="val" type="ST_OnOff"/>
</complexType>