TEIcompatible

TEIcompatible is a designation used in digital humanities and XML tooling to indicate that a piece of software, a data file, or a processing pipeline adheres to the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) guidelines. In practice, this means that the item can be read, interpreted, or generated using TEI-compliant tools and can participate in TEI-based workflows.

The TEI Guidelines define TEI P5, a modular XML schema with a core repertoire and numerous optional modules for encoding textual features, structure, bibliographic metadata, names and places, dates, prose and poetry, and more. TEIcompatible items may use the standard TEI element names and attributes and are typically designed to be validated against TEI schemas (RELAX NG, XML Schema, or DTD) or to be well-formed XML that interoperates with TEI processing tools.

The degree of compatibility varies. Some products support the full TEI P5 specification; others support a subset sufficient for common tasks. Validation, namespace usage, and conformance to module specifications influence interoperability.

Common uses include encoding digitized texts for scholarly publishing, archival descriptions, linguistic annotation, and digital editions. TEIcompatible software often provides pipelines for conversion between TEI-XML and other formats, stylesheet-driven rendering, and integration with TEI publishers or repositories.

Because TEI is a living standard, practitioners should verify current version support and module coverage when labeling something TEIcompatible. See TEI.org and related documentation for detailed schemas and best practices.