Correct error on commenting file

This article is relevant for:

Voter; Committee Manager; PC Secretary; Convenor; & support teams

Please note

Committee Manager (CM), Twinned Committee Manager (Twinned CM), Committee Manager Support Team (CM Support Team) roles refer to technical committees and their sub-committees only.
Secretary, Twinned Secretary, Secretary/Convenor Support Team roles refer to Working Groups (WG), Policy committees, and Governance committees.

Warning

The CCT will stop analysing a comment file as soon as it detects the first error. You may therefore need to execute the CCT several times on the same comment file, once the detected error has been corrected, to verify if it contains other errors.

Voters and commenters having submitted a comment file with non-compliant formats will receive the below notification.

This article lists some of the most common error message you can receive when a file has a non-compliant format and provide some solution on how to correct the file.

Number of tables in main document is 2

Reason: The comment file contains multiple tables. This error appears when the comment table has been split into 2 or more tables, or when additional reference tables have been added at the end of the document.

How to correct: If the comments table has been split into several comment tables, then you need to merge them back by removing line separators and paragraph/section/page breaks (like in the example below).

Click on the Show/Hide Formatting Symbols icon on your Word toolbar to display the formatting symbols, to better spot the undesired formatting elements.

Body, row X, column Y - There are nested tables in cell

Reason: A table has been found in a comment cell (like in the example below). Tables cannot be inserted in a cell.

How to correct: Move the table into a new word file and save it to your desktop. Then insert, by drag and drop, the Word file containing the table in the comment cell. (The moved table needs to be deleted or the same error will be displayed again.)

There are N graphics outside the main table. All graphics must be in table cells 'comments

Reason: Graphic elements have been found outside of the comment table. All comments must be located inside the comment table. Text, images, tables, etc. cannot be located after or before the comment table.

How to correct: Move elements located after or before the comment tables in a separate word file and save it to your desktop. Then insert, by drag and drop, the Word file containing the added element in the comment cell. (The moved element needs to be deleted or the same error will be displayed again.)

Document contains text before CCT table, this is not permitted, please clean up text before CCT table

See previous error description.

Procedure error - 5991 - Cannot access individual rows in this collection because the table has vertically merged cells

Reason: Vertically merged cells have been found. Cells cannot be merged vertically (or horizontally), even if a comment applies to several clauses.

How to correct: Unmerge cells which have been merged, and either duplicate the comments or specify “same comment as above”.

Table structure error - There is a problem in the structure of the comments table (for example merged cells, misaligned rows)

Reason: Either 2 or more cells have been merged horizontally, or the left/right cell borders of a cell have been moved and are no more aligned with the column of the table (not always easy to spot, see example below).

How to correct: If cells are merged, they must be unmerged.
If some cells are not correctly aligned with the column, then the first option is to slightly move the incorrectly aligned column to the right and back to the left to realign it to its column.

A second option to correct this error is to (re)set the column width of columns which are not aligned.

1. Click in a cell in the first column, then click on Layout in the Toolbar and to verify the width of the cell.

2. Use Tab to move through all 8 columns

3. A column displaying an empty width means that it contains cells with different widths. Its size needs therefore to be reset to its original width (see table below).

Body, row X, column Y - There is unexpected formatting in cell (bullets or numbering ...etc.)

Reason: The comments file most probably contains autonumbering fields (see example below).

How to correct: Replace the auto-numbered fields (grey fields) with a manual numbering by written them one by one.