Introduction and Organization

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Release or development version: r-5

The EpiDoc Guidelines explain the use of the EpiDoc encoding scheme, which provides for the realization of electronic epigraphic editions, corpora and similar materials in the eXtensible Markup Language (XML). EpiDoc makes use of the Text Encoding Initiative XML tagset, customizing it for epigraphic work.

Several principles have been followed in developing these recommendations:

• the markup language provides the same degrees of flexibility and rigor inherent in the format-oriented editing conventions employed by epigraphers in print
• format is separated from structure and meaning: therefore, characters may be used only to represent text characters and symbols; all editorial distinctions are made using structured markup
• rules laid down for the use of a given TEI tag in the TEI Guidelines should be followed strictly by EpiDoc unless there is no appropriate encoding structure provided by TEI

The following sections provide a full introduction and orientation to the EpiDoc Guidelines. They constitute the essential starting point for new and prospective practitioners, as well as information technologists charged with supporting new EpiDoc projects.

Subsections

• Introduction for Epigraphers
• Background and Rationale
• Conformance and Interoperability: What it means to be EpiDoc
• Organization of the Guidelines: where to go from here
• The encoding of the guidelines, a technical description