<xsl:template match="//chapter/section[1]/para[1]" priority="1">
you don't need // at the start of (any) match pattern. (The only reason
why you need an explict priority on this template is because you used
//para in the other template rather than just para which matches the
same nodes, but with a lower default priority.
Also, in this case you probably want to match on the first text node of
the first para rather than the para itself as in
<xsl:template match="chapter/section[1]/para[1]//text()[1]" priority="1">
As you have it, you are doing string operations on the entire paragraph
text which means that any element markup within the paragraph will be
lost.
David
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