library(XML) #tt = xmlTree("w:wordDocument", namespaces = c(w = "http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2003/wordml")) tt = xmlTree(namespaces = c(w = "http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2003/wordml")) tt$addPI("mso-application", "progid='Word.Document'") tt$addTag("wordDocument", namespace = "w", close = FALSE) # XXX if we put this first, we don't get the body. Need to then add the body # as a sibling of the PI. v = tt$addTag("w:body", tt$addTag("w:p", tt$addTag("w:r", tt$addTag("w:t", "Hello World!")))) tt$closeTag() cat(saveXML(tt))