diff --git a/tests/example_xls/instance_xmlns_test.xls b/tests/example_xls/instance_xmlns_test.xls
deleted file mode 100644
index 3978bfe91..000000000
Binary files a/tests/example_xls/instance_xmlns_test.xls and /dev/null differ
diff --git a/tests/example_xls/instance_xmlns_test.xml b/tests/example_xls/instance_xmlns_test.xml
deleted file mode 100644
index a037f6b76..000000000
--- a/tests/example_xls/instance_xmlns_test.xml
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,30 +0,0 @@
-<h:html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2002/xforms" xmlns:ev="http://www.w3.org/2001/xml-events" xmlns:h="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:jr="http://openrosa.org/javarosa" xmlns:orx="http://openrosa.org/xforms" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:odk="http://www.opendatakit.org/xforms">
-  <h:head>
-    <h:title>foo</h:title>
-    <model odk:xforms-version="1.0.0">
-      <instance>
-        <instance_xmlns_test id="instance_xmlns_test" xmlns="1234">
-          <yes_or_no/>
-            <meta>
-                <instanceID/>
-            </meta>
-        </instance_xmlns_test>
-      </instance>
-      <bind nodeset="/instance_xmlns_test/yes_or_no" type="string"/>
-      <bind jr:preload="uid" nodeset="/instance_xmlns_test/meta/instanceID" readonly="true()" type="string"/>
-    </model>
-  </h:head>
-  <h:body>
-    <select1 ref="/instance_xmlns_test/yes_or_no">
-      <label>Yes or No?</label>
-      <item>
-        <label>Yes</label>
-        <value>yes</value>
-      </item>
-      <item>
-        <label>No</label>
-        <value>no</value>
-      </item>
-    </select1>
-  </h:body>
-</h:html>
diff --git a/tests/test_settings.py b/tests/test_settings.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..e61d89cc7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/test_settings.py
@@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
+from tests.pyxform_test_case import PyxformTestCase
+
+
+class TestSettings(PyxformTestCase):
+
+    def test_instance_xmlns__is_set__custom_xmlns(self):
+        """Should find the instance_xmlns value in the instance xmlns attribute."""
+        md = """
+        | settings |
+        |          | instance_xmlns             |
+        |          | 1234 |
+        | survey |       |      |       |
+        |        | type  | name | label |
+        |        | text  | q1   | hello |
+        """
+        self.assertPyxformXform(
+            md=md,
+            xml__xpath_match=[
+                """
+                /h:html/h:head/x:model/x:instance/*[
+                  local-name()='test_name'
+                  and @id='test_id'
+                  and namespace-uri()='1234'
+                ]
+                """
+            ]
+        )
+
+    def test_instance_xmlns__not_set__default_xmlns(self):
+        """Should find the default xmlns for the instance element."""
+        md = """
+        | survey |       |      |       |
+        |        | type  | name | label |
+        |        | text  | q1   | hello |
+        """
+        self.assertPyxformXform(
+            md=md,
+            xml__xpath_match=[
+                """
+                /h:html/h:head/x:model/x:instance/*[
+                  local-name()='test_name'
+                  and @id='test_id'
+                  and namespace-uri()='http://www.w3.org/2002/xforms'
+                ]
+                """
+            ],
+        )
diff --git a/tests/tests_by_file.py b/tests/tests_by_file.py
deleted file mode 100644
index 43daba818..000000000
--- a/tests/tests_by_file.py
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,52 +0,0 @@
-# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
-"""
-Tests by file. Runs through a list of *.xls files, and expects that the output
-for a *.xml with a matching prefix before the . is as expected. Possibly risky:
-all tests in this file are defined according to matching files.
-"""
-
-import codecs
-import os
-import sys
-import xml.etree.ElementTree as ETree
-from unittest import TestCase
-
-from formencode.doctest_xml_compare import xml_compare
-
-import pyxform
-from pyxform import xls2json
-from tests import utils
-
-
-class MainTest(TestCase):
-    def runTest(self):
-        files_to_test = ["instance_xmlns_test.xls"]
-        for file_to_test in files_to_test:
-            path_to_excel_file = utils.path_to_text_fixture(file_to_test)
-
-            # Get the xform output path:
-            directory, filename = os.path.split(path_to_excel_file)
-            root_filename, ext = os.path.splitext(filename)
-            path_to_output_xform = os.path.join(directory, root_filename + "_output.xml")
-            path_to_expected_xform = os.path.join(directory, root_filename + ".xml")
-
-            # Do the conversion:
-            json_survey = xls2json.parse_file_to_json(
-                path_to_excel_file, default_name=root_filename
-            )
-            survey = pyxform.create_survey_element_from_dict(json_survey)
-            survey.print_xform_to_file(path_to_output_xform)
-
-            # Compare with the expected output:
-            with codecs.open(
-                path_to_expected_xform, "rb", encoding="utf-8"
-            ) as expected_file:
-                expected = ETree.fromstring(expected_file.read())
-                result = ETree.fromstring(survey.to_xml())
-
-                def write_line(x):
-                    sys.stdout.write(x + "\n")
-
-                reporter = write_line
-                self.assertTrue(xml_compare(expected, result, reporter=reporter))
-            os.remove(path_to_output_xform)