Guidelines
The TEI Guidelines for Electronic Text Encoding and Interchange define and document a markup language for representing the structural, renditional, and conceptual features of texts. They focus (though not exclusively) on the encoding of documents in the humanities and social sciences, and in particular on the representation of primary source materials for research and analysis. These guidelines are expressed as a modular, extensible XML schema, accompanied by detailed documentation, and are published under an open-source license. The Guidelines are maintained and developed by the TEI Consortium, through its Technical Council, with the support and participation of the TEI community.
Below are some of the most important resources and information needed to use and learn about the Guidelines:
P5 Guidelines The most recent version of the TEI Guidelines is known as P5. It was initially released in November 2007 and has been updated since then on a six-month cycle, with point releases incorporating maintenance fixes and minor feature enhancements.
Customization of the Guidelines The Guidelines are designed to be customized, and specific projects and disciplinary groups often create customized versions reflecting particular needs and practices. We collect here well-documented TEI customizations, such as the popular TEI Lite, that may be of use as models or for projects wishing to follow their practice. We also provide information on creating TEI customizations.
Internationalization The Guidelines are currently being translated into languages other than English; we provide here details of this process and information on how to get internationalized versions of the Guidelines.
The TEI GitHub Site The TEI maintains a GitHub repository where it manages the development and distribution of current versions of the Guidelines. The source files for the latest version of the Guidelines and related materials (stylesheets, Roma, I18N files) can be downloaded at the GitHub site.
The TEI Archive contains older versions of the Guidelines, and some history of their development; it also contains archived materials from earlier versions of the TEI web site.
The TEI welcomes participation in the development of the Guidelines; we detail here the various ways in which the TEI community (members and non-members) can contribute.
Learn about the licensing terms for the Guidelines, and how to cite them.
The TEI maintains a list of resources and materials that can help you get started learning the Guidelines, including links to workshops, project documentation, and online tutorials.