TEI by Example

General TEI Document Structure

The TEI makes use of XML as its governing metalanguage. This means that all TEI metadata are expressed as XML elements and thus comply with the World Wide Web Consortium XML Recommendation. Information (plain text) is contained in XML elements, delimited by start tags (e.g., TEI) and end tags (e.g., TEI). Additional information to these XML elements can be given in attributes, consisting of a name (e.g., xml:id) and a value (e.g., text1). XML comments are delimited by start markers ().In these TEI by Example tutorials, names of TEI components are formatted in a specific way: Element names are printed in monospace between pointy brackets, e.g., TEI Attribute are displayed in monospace, and prefixed with the at sign, e.g., n Class, datatype, and macro names are displayed in monospace, e.g., att.global All of these components are being presented as hyperlinks to their declaration in the TEI Guidelines. This should make it easier to look up the reference documentation.

A full TEI document consists of one single TEI element, which consists of two major components: teiHeader: an element containing all the metadata describing the document. text: an element containg the actual document This common structure is mandatory for all standard TEI documents.

The minimal structure of a TEI document.

This is an example of a TEI XML text, containing both information and meta-information. This example, as any TEI text, is recognizable as a TEI text by the outermost TEI element, which is declared in the dedicated TEI namespace (http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0). Before proceeding, let’s first have a look at the namespace declaration. In the previous example, the TEI namespace is declared as the default namespace, i.e., without any prefix. It could have been expressed equally as follows:

A TEI document with mixed namespace prefixes.

Here, the namespace declaration xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" on the TEI element binds the TEI namespace URI (http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0) to the namespace prefix tei. All descendant elements using that prefix before the actual element name belong to this namespace (e.g., tei:teiHeader). Yet, the text element contains its own namespace declaration: xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0, only this time it is binding it to an empty namespace prefix. All descendant elements without a namespace prefix (in the default namespace), will belong to this namespace. Since both namespace declarations in the previous example are referencing the same namespace URI, the previous example is equivalent to the first.

Because the TEI namespace is vital to any TEI element, the examples in these TEI by Example tutorials will explicitly render their top-level element(s) with a default (i.e., without namespace prefix) namespace declaration for the TEI namespace URI. In order not to hamper legibility, no namespace prefix will be used, and the namespace declaration won’t be repeated on any descendant elements.

TEI Header

The TEI header (teiHeader) is mandatory and contains descriptive meta-information about the document. The teiHeader minimally contains a description of the electronic file inside a (fileDesc). The latter element consists of three mandatory components: the title statement (titleStmt), providing information about the title (title), author (author), and others responsible for the electronic text the publication statement (publicationStmt), providing publication details about the electronic text in a structured way or as prose inside a paragraph (p) a description of the source (sourceDesc), documenting bibliographic details about the electronic text’s material source (if any) in a structured way or in a prose paragraph (p)

The Strange Adventures of Dr. Burt Diddledygook: a machine-readable transcription editor Edward Vanhoutte

Not for distribution.

Transcribed from the diaries of the late Dr. Roy Offire.

A minimal TEI header.

See for detailed information on teiHeader.

Text

Body

The actual text (text) contains a single text of any kind. This commonly contains the actual text and other encodings. A text text minimally contains a text body (body). The body contains lower-level text structures like paragraphs (p), or different structures for text genres other than prose: lines (l) for poetry, speeches (sp) for drama.

For the first time in twenty-five years, Dr Burt Diddledygook decided not to turn up to the annual meeting of the Royal Academy of Whoopledywhaa (RAW). It was a sunny day in late September 1960 bang on noontime and Dr Burt was looking forward to a stroll in the park instead. He hoped his fellow members of theRAW weren't even going to notice his absence.

A body element with paragraphs.

Front

Next to the body, a text can optionally contain front matter which may be encoded with front. Clear examples are title pages, headers, prefaces, or dedications. Prologues in drama or forewords and introductions in prose may also be considered prefatory material. May, because the encoder may choose simply not to encode the front matter of a text as such. With exception of the title page, for which the TEI defines specific elements, front matter should be encoded using the same elements as the rest of a text. This means that there are no specific elements to encode prefaces, dedications, abstracts, frontispieces etc. Instead, either numbered or un-numbered divisions div with an attribute type are used to distinguish between the different components of a front section. The following suggested values for the type attribute may be used for this purpose: preface: a foreword or preface addressed to the reader ack: a formal declaration of acknowledgement by the author dedication: a formal offering or dedication of a text by the author abstract: a summary of the content of a text as continuous prose contents: a table of contents. A list element should be used to mark its structure frontispiece: a pictorial frontispiece, possibly including some text

In memory of Lisa Wheeman.

Table of Contents I. The Decision II. The Fuss III. The Celebration

A front section with a dedication and table of contents.

Back

All back matter to a text may be grouped within back. As is the case with front, either numbered or un-numbered divisions div with a type attribute are used to distinguish the different components. The following attribute values may be supplied for the type in order to distinguish various kinds of division characteristic of back matter: appendix: an appended self-contained section of a work, often providing additional information or text glossary: contains a list listof terms and their explanations notes: a section in which textual or other kinds of notes are gathered together bibliogr: contains a list of bibliographical citations listBibl index: any form of index to the work colophon: a statement appearing at the end of a book describing the conditions of its physical production

Typeset in Haselfoot 37 and Henry 8. Printed and bound by Whistleshout, South Africa.

A back section with a colophon.

Full Example text

In memory of Lisa Wheeman.

Table of Contents I. The Decision II. The Fuss III. The Celebration

Typeset in Haselfoot 37 and Henry 8. Printed and bound by Whistleshout, South Africa.

A full text structure.

Unitary or Composite Texts

Apart from simple texts, TEI provides means to encode composite texts, either by grouping structurally related texts in a group element inside text, or treating them as a corpus of diverse texts, using teiCorpus as the outermost element.

Summary

The following example shows the empty framework of a basic TEI document structure:

A minimal structure for the TEI element.

The following example fills this empty framework with the text of the examples:

The Strange Adventures of Dr. Burt Diddledygook: a machine-readable transcription editor Edward Vanhoutte

Not for distribution.

Transcribed from the diaries of the late Dr. Roy Offire.

In memory of Lisa Wheeman.

Table of Contents I. The Decision II. The Fuss III. The Celebration

For the first time in twenty-five years, Dr Burt Diddledygook decided not to turn up to the annual meeting of the Royal Academy of Whoopledywhaan (RAW). It was a sunny day in late September 1960 bang on noontime and Dr Burt was looking forward to a stroll in the park instead. He hoped his fellow members of the RAW weren't even going to notice his absence.

Typeset in Haselfoot 37 and Henry 8. Printed and bound by Whistleshout, South Africa.

The example text encoded as a TEI text with TEI.