Hi Hans, first thanks for your help at Epen, but reading the different documents I could not find out how to define a macro to get the value of a specific element of an xml-file. Running your example I get all elements. For example: I wont to get the value of the first name for <person pid="66"> \def\getFirstName#1{{\enableXML\getvalue{person:#1}}} % what is here to change? Thanks for help again Bernd