I have an xml that has a description node: <config> <desc>A <b>first</b> sentence here. The second sentence with some link <a href="myurl">The link</a>. The <u>third</u> one.</desc> </config> I am trying to split the sentences using dot as separator but keeping in the same time in the HTML output the eventual HTML tags. What I have so far is a template that splits the description but the HTML tags are lost in the output due to the normalize-space and substring-before functions. My current template is given below: <xsl:template name="output-tokens"> <xsl:param name="sourceText" /> <!-- Force a . at the end --> <xsl:variable name="newlist" select="concat(normalize-space($sourceText), ' ')" /> <!-- Check if we have really a point at the end --> <xsl:choose> <xsl:when test ="contains($newlist, '.')"> <!-- Find the first . in the string --> <xsl:variable name="first" select="substring-before($newlist, '.')" /> <!-- Get the remaining text --> <xsl:variable name="remaining" select="substring-after($newlist, '.')" /> <!-- Check if our string is not in fact a . or an empty string --> <xsl:if test="normalize-space($first)!='.' and normalize-space($first)!=''"> <p><xsl:value-of select="normalize-space($first)" />.</p> </xsl:if> <!-- Recursively apply the template for the remaining text --> <xsl:if test="$remaining"> <xsl:call-template name="output-tokens"> <xsl:with-param name="sourceText" select="$remaining" /> </xsl:call-template> </xsl:if> </xsl:when> <!--If no . was found --> <xsl:otherwise> <p> <!-- If the string does not contains a . then display the text but avoid displaying empty strings --> <xsl:if test="normalize-space($sourceText)!=''"> <xsl:value-of select="normalize-space($sourceText)" />. </xsl:if> </p> </xsl:otherwise> </xsl:choose> </xsl:template> and I am using it in the following manner: <xsl:template match="config"> <xsl:call-template name="output-tokens"> <xsl:with-param name="sourceText" select="desc" /> </xsl:call-template> </xsl:template> The expected output is: <p>A <b>first</b> sentence here.</p> <p>The second sentence with some link <a href="myurl">The link</a>.</p> <p>The <u>third</u> one.</p>