PHPOffice/PHPWord · error · Exception

Could not load image $originSrc

Error message

Could not load image $originSrc

What it means

Html::parseImage() resolves an <img> src to a local path (or downloads it) and, if is_file($src) fails, it cannot obtain the image binary and throws Exception. The message shows the original src attribute, not the resolved path, which can be misleading.

Solutions

1. Verify the image path exists and is readable with is_file()/is_readable() before adding the HTML.
2. Replace remote URLs with locally downloaded copies (e.g. via file_get_contents/curl) and reference local paths.
3. Make relative src paths absolute relative to the correct base directory.
4. Check open_basedir/permissions if the file definitely exists.

Example fix

// before
$section->addHtml('<img src="https://cdn.example.com/logo.png">');
// after
$local = sys_get_temp_dir() . '/logo.png';
file_put_contents($local, file_get_contents('https://cdn.example.com/logo.png'));
$section->addImage($local);

if (!is_file($src) && !filter_var($src, FILTER_VALIDATE_URL)) {
    throw new InvalidArgumentException("Image not accessible: $src");
}

try {
    $section->addHtml($html);
} catch (\PhpOffice\PhpWord\Exception\Exception $e) {
    if (str_starts_with($e->getMessage(), 'Could not load image')) {
        $logger->warning('Skipping unresolvable image', ['msg' => $e->getMessage()]);
    } else {
        throw $e;
    }
}

When it happens

Trigger: Parsing HTML via the HTML reader / addHtml with an <img> tag whose src is a remote URL when downloading failed or was not performed, a relative path that does not resolve from the document's base directory, or a path to a nonexistent/removed file.

Common situations: Embedding HTML snippets with remote CDN images; moving HTML files so relative image paths break; images generated at runtime but not yet written to disk; open_basedir or permissions blocking file access.

Understand the failure class

Background: "File not found" and ENOENT errors: why libraries can't find a file that should exist — this error's family across 50 libraries.

Related errors

• Invalid image
• Could not open ' . $sFileName . ' for reading! File does…
• Cannot find archive file.
• Invalid image
• Invalid value, on of ' . implode(', ', $position) . '…

AI-assisted analysis of PHPOffice/PHPWord@aef95c0415 (2026-09-14). Data as JSON: /api/errors/551bbb3c268d08f1. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at src/PhpWord/Shared/Html.php:1052

                preg_match('/.+\.(\w+)$/', $src, $match);
                $src = $tmpDir . uniqid();
                if (isset($match[1])) {
                    $src .= '.' . $match[1];
                }

                $ifp = fopen($src, 'wb');

                if ($ifp !== false) {
                    fwrite($ifp, $imgBlob);
                    fclose($ifp);
                }
            }
        }

        if (is_file($src)) {
            $newElement = $element->addImage($src, $style, false, null, $altText);
        } else {
            throw new Exception("Could not load image $originSrc");
        }

        return $newElement;
    }

    /**
     * Transforms a CSS border style into a word border style.
     *
     * @param string $cssBorderStyle
     *
     * @return null|string
     */
    protected static function mapBorderStyle($cssBorderStyle)
    {
        switch ($cssBorderStyle) {
            case 'none':
            case 'dashed':
            case 'dotted':

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