XML Image Validator: When Images Inside XML Files Go Wrong
XML files often reference images. Those images go missing. Links break. Base64 data gets corrupted. This tool finds every image problem before delivery.
Many XML formats — ebooks, technical documentation, publishing formats — embed or reference images. Either as file paths (relative or absolute), as URLs, or as base64-encoded data directly inside the XML.
Each method has its own failure mode. File paths break when files are moved or renamed. URLs break when servers go down or URLs change. Base64 data gets corrupted when files are edited by tools that don't properly handle binary data in text context.
The XML Image Validator checks all three: resolves relative paths and verifies the files exist, fetches URLs and verifies they return valid images, decodes base64 strings and verifies the resulting data is a valid image format.
For the base64 case, it also validates that the declared MIME type matches the actual image data — a common error when templates have the wrong type prefix on the base64 string.
The report shows every image reference in every file: valid, missing, or corrupted. With the multi-file version, you can validate an entire book project or documentation set at once. I built this after discovering — post-delivery — that a large project had 23 broken image references spread across 180 files. The client was not happy. This tool ensures that never happens again.