Encoding for Interchange: an introduction to the TEI
language: en

This document provides an introduction to the recommendations of the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI), by describing a specific subset of the full TEI encoding scheme. The scheme documented here can be used to encode a wide variety of commonly encountered textual features, in such a way as to maximize the usability of electronic transcriptions and to facilitate their interchange among scholars using different computer systems. It is fully compatible with the full TEI scheme, as defined by TEI document P5, Guidelines for Electronic Text Encoding and Interchange, as of February 2006, and available from the TEI Consortium website at .

Appendixes

Substantive changes from the P4 version

This revision of the TEI Lite schema conforms to the TEI P5 Guidelines, which makes a number of changes from the TEI P4 Guidelines underlying earlier versions of TEI Lite. The following brief list indicates some of the major changes which will be needed in existing TEI P4-conformant documents before they can be used with the new schema. A fuller list is in preparation for publication as a part of TEI P5: the items listed here relate specifically to changes in TEI Lite only.

- At P5, a TEI document must declare a namespace of http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0
- The attributes @id and @lang are replaced by the attributes @xml:id and @xml:lang respectively. Values for the latter attribute must conform to RFC 3066
- The element <choice> must be used to wrap <reg> and <orig> if both are supplied. Similarly for <sic> and <corr>, and for <abbr> and <expan>.
- numbered divs (<div1>, <div2>, etc.) are not supported in this version of TEI Lite
- all pointing and linking mechanisms now use the same W3C-defined mechanism: there is no longer any distinction between internal and external pointing elements
- the content model of <change> has changed significantly
- hic desunt multa

Formal specification

The TEI Lite is a pure subset of the TEI. All of the elements defined in it are taken from the following standard TEI modules: tei, core, header, textstructure, figures, linking, analysis, and tagdocs.

The following elements from those modules are excluded from the schema: <ab>, <alt>, <altGrp>, <altIdent>, <analytic>, <attDef>, <attList>, <attRef>, <biblItem>, <biblStruct>, <binaryObject>, <broadcast>, <c>, <cb>, <cl>, <classSpec>, <classes>, <content>, <correction>, <datatype>, <defaultVal>, <desc>, <distinct>, <div1>, <div2>, <div3>, <div4>, <div5>, <div6>, <div7>, <egXML>, <elementSpec>, <equipment>, <equiv>, <exemplum>, <fsdDecl>, <floatingText>, <headItem>, <headLabel>, <hyphenation>, <imprimatur>, <interpretation>, <join>, <joinGrp>, <link>, <linkGrp>, <listRef>, <m>, <macroSpec>, <measure>, <meeting>, <memberOf>, <metDecl>, <metSym>, <moduleRef>, <moduleSpec>, <monogr>, <normalization>, <phr>, <postBox>, <postCode>, <quotation>, <recording>, <recordingStmt>, <remarks>, <schemaSpec>, <scriptStmt>, <segmentation>, <series>, <span>, <spanGrp>, <specDesc>, <specGrp>, <specGrpRef>, <specList>, <state>, <stdVals>, <street>, <stringVal>, <tag>, <timeline>, <valDesc>, <valItem>, <valList>, <variantEncoding>, <w>, <when>

Here is the TEI Lite schema itself :

<ab>

<altGrp>

<altIdent>

<alt>

<analytic>

<attDef>

<attList>

<attRef>

<biblItem>

<biblStruct>

<binaryObject>

<broadcast>

<cb>

<classes>

<classSpec>

<cl>

<c>

<content>

<constraintGrp>

<constraint>

<correction>

<data>

<datatype>

<defaultVal>

<distinct>

<div1>

<div2>

<div3>

<div4>

<div5>

<div6>

<div7>

<egXML>

<email>

<elementSpec>

<equipment>

<equiv>

<exemplum>

<floatingText>

<fsdDecl>

<headItem>

<headLabel>

<hyphenation>

<imprimatur>

<interpretation>

<joinGrp>

<join>

<linkGrp>

<link>

<listRef>

<macroSpec>

<measure>

<meeting>

<memberOf>

<metDecl>

<metSym>

<m>

<moduleRef>

<moduleSpec>

<monogr>

<normalization>

<phr>

<postBox>

<postCode>

<quotation>

<recording>

<recordingStmt>

<remarks>

<schemaSpec>

<scriptStmt>

<segmentation>

<series>

<spanGrp>

<span>

<specDesc>

<specGrp>

<specGrpRef>

<specList>

<state>

<stdVals>

<street>

<stringVal>

<tag>

<tagsDecl>

<timeline>

<valDesc>

<valItem>

<valList>

<variantEncoding>

<when>

<w>

<handNote>

<tagUsage>

<imprint>

<rendition>

<namespace>

att.global
@rendition