Ok, well, the answer only required a little search. The following tutorial/intro gives an overview of SAX and its relation to DOM4J. It also discusses which of the 2 is most appropriate in an application. I am still reading it, but tika is built on SAX as its internal representation, and not DOM4J. However, my question is, are we committed to using DOM4J in brailleblaster? Would SAX provide a better interface for an editor? More in a minute as I read this intro. Comments welcome. --le The message is ready to be sent with the following file or link attachments: Shortcut to: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-saxapi/ Note: To protect against computer viruses, e-mail programs may prevent sending or receiving certain types of file attachments. Check your e-mail security settings to determine how attachments are handled.