When a transcribed folio won't parse

When you press preview after finishing a transcription, you may find the folio will not parse. This means there is an error in the tagging.

On these occasions an error message will show up, instead of a preview of the transcription. Here is an example:

Often, you will find that reading the error message will tell you what the problem is, and what line the error occurs. If you are not sure what the message means, go to the line it tells you and look carefully at your tags. You will usually be able to spot your error.

Common errors are:

• Not remembering to close all open tags;
• Not closing nested tags in the correct order;
• Using a tag which the Estoria de Espanna team have not told Textual Communities to accept (the error message will say the tag is not in the DTD, which is the list of acceptable tags)
• Some tags copied and pasted from the wiki require you to delete and re-type any inverted commas ( " )

The Textual Communities parser only shows you one error at a time, starting from the top of the folio. You may find that you correct one error and re-press preview, only to find you have another error message from further down the folio. With patience you will be able to work your way through the folio until it will hopefully parse.

What if I can't correct my errors, so it won't parse?

Sometimes you just cannot seem to understand why a folio won't parse, despite your best efforts. Perhaps this is because you don't understand the error message. This is a common occurrence as sometimes the error messages can be difficult to understand.

In such cases you have a couple of options of what to do next: 

• You could post a query on the bulletin board;
• You could just leave your folio in its non-parsing state, and wait for the proof-reader to make it parse. This is, of course, a last resort.