This TEI customization describes a schema that includes all of the TEI P5 modules and also allows MathML elements inside the formula element and Scaleable Vector Graphics (SVG) elements inside the figure element, per the tei_math and tei_svg customizations, respectively. This is a very useful starting place for manually creating your own customizations — it is much easier to delete the modules you do not want than to add the modules you do. Furthermore this customization often proves helpful for testing TEI software.

However, this particular TEI customization is not recommended for actual use for encoding documents. It produces schemas and reference documentation that will be much larger and include many more elements than almost anyone could conceivably ever need. Tempting though it may be simply to have absolutely everything, and just ignore elements not required, experience has shown that their presence makes the documentation harder to read and use, and makes a schema that is far more lax than desired.

Note that the modules are referred to below in the order they are defined by the TEI , and that the value of thte n attribute reflects the chapter number in which the module is defined. The first four modules are often called the required modules. However, these modules are not themselves technically required to create a TEI conformant markup language (let alone a useful non-TEI conformant markup language). Rather, they each contain one or more elements which are required for TEI conformance.