Validation against the VML schemas cannot be separated from that against the rest of OOXML. In other words, a WordprocessingML document cannot be validated without performing validation against the VML schemas.

Specify "skip" as the value of "processContents" attribute.

Part 4 Annex A

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Proposed Disposition of DIS 29500 Comment JP-0069 (Modified: 2008-01-10) We completely agree that we need to have the capacity to validate Open XML documents against the Open XML schemas excluding the VML schemas. If a particular Open XML consumer does not support VML, that consumer should be able to validate its document without using or requiring the VML schemas in any way. In addition, if a particular Open XML consumer chose to support VML, then that consumer should be able to validate using the VML schemas. In two locations in the WordprocessingML schema, the processContents attribute of the xsd:any element is set to lax . If the processContents attribute of the xsd:any element is set to "lax", then the schema processor will validate elements for which it can find declarations, as described in §3.10.2 of the XML Schema specification ( http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-1/ ), which reads: lax If the item has a uniquely determined declaration available, it must be ·valid· with respect to that definition, that is, ·validate· if you can, don’t worry if you can’t. The schema wml.xsd imports the VML namespace, and has a schemaLocation attribute set to "vml-main.xsd". Per the W3C XSD standard, the schemaLocation attribute is just a hint; the processor is not required to resolve it. Therefore, it is valid to simply remove the VML schemas, and the VML contained at these locations should not be validated. To ensure this use of processContents was supported cross-platform, the schemas were tested with Xerces-J, version 2.9.1, and observed the following: 1) If the VML schemas are present, and the document contains valid VML markup, then the document validates. 2) If the VML schemas are present, and the document contains invalid VML markup, then the document fails to validate, as expected. 3) If the VML schemas are not present, then regardless of whether the VML markup is valid or not, the document validates. We also tested with Microsoft’s schema validator, and observed the same behaviour, which matches the XSD standard. If we were to change from lax to skip , then it would not be possible to validate the VML elements by a consumer who chose to support VML. Therefore, we propose to not change the processContents attribute of the xsd:any element to skip , but to leave it as lax .