your first suggestion about changes of list works fine. <xsl:template match="mets:div/@LABEL[matches(., '^Pagina [0-9]+$')]"> <xsl:variable name="n"> <xsl:number level="any" count="mets:div[@LABEL[matches(., '^Pagina [0-9]+$')]]"/> </xsl:variable> <xsl:attribute name="LABEL" select="concat('Carta ', if ($n mod 2 = 0) then concat(($n + 1) idiv 2, 'v') else concat(($n + 1) idiv 2, 'r'))"/> </xsl:template> what can i do if i want to modify your suggestion with the new needs that you wrote to change Kay's suggestion? Or if you want to exclude the first found element then <xsl:variable name="g" select="(//mets:div[matches(@LABEL, '^Pagina [0-9]+$')])[position() gt 1]"/> i would prefer to don't add new namespaces, but to adopt linear solution even if it has more redoundancy...