The abbreviation of TextMD stands for Technical Metadata for Text. It is an XML-based Schema, developed for encoding technical metadata of text-based digital objects (such as digitized books or manuscripts) in XML. The specification was originally created by the New York University Digital Library Team (NYU). Since 2007, it has been taken over by the LoC (the Library of Congress) for further maintenance of the specification.

The technical metadata schema describes technical attributes of digital objects and specific information about their production or creation, such as:

• encoding information (quality, platform, software, agent)
• character information (character set and size, byte order and size, line terminators)
• languages
• fonts
• markup information
• processing and textual notes
• technical requirements for printing and viewing
• page ordering and sequencing.

Such information is necessary to be included in a metadata, as it is often needed for the reproduction, distribution or modification of the digital resources in the future.

The TextMD schema is adventageous because it can be used as a standalone document or extension schema within the Metadata Encoding and Transmission Schema (METS) describing administrative metadata.