Just a note that I suggest you remove formatting characters from the resultant XML. The point of XML is that you can easily put style back, just save the content and structure. <bib> <author> <snm>Author surname</snm><fnm>Forenames</fnm> </author> <year>1980</year> <arttitle>article title</arttitle> <jtitle>Journal title</jtitle> <vol>28</vol> <issue>2</issue> <fp>153</fp> <lp>5</lp> </bib>