This is texinfo.info, produced by texi2any version 6.0 from texinfo.texi. This manual is for GNU Texinfo (version 6.0, 26 June 2015), a documentation system that can produce both online information and a printed manual from a single source using semantic markup. Copyright (C) 1988, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 Free Software Foundation, Inc. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with the Front-Cover Texts being "A GNU Manual", and with the Back-Cover Texts as in (a) below. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License". (a) The FSF's Back-Cover Text is: "You have the freedom to copy and modify this GNU manual. Buying copies from the FSF supports it in developing GNU and promoting software freedom." INFO-DIR-SECTION Texinfo documentation system START-INFO-DIR-ENTRY * Texinfo: (texinfo). The GNU documentation format. * install-info: (texinfo)Invoking install-info. Update info/dir entries. * makeinfo: (texinfo)Invoking makeinfo. Translate Texinfo source. * pod2texi: (pod2texi)Invoking pod2texi. Translate Perl POD to Texinfo. * texi2dvi: (texinfo)Format with texi2dvi. Print Texinfo documents. * texi2pdf: (texinfo)PDF Output. PDF output for Texinfo. * pdftexi2dvi: (texinfo)PDF Output. PDF output for Texinfo. * texindex: (texinfo)Format with tex/texindex. Sort Texinfo index files. END-INFO-DIR-ENTRY  File: texinfo.info, Node: Top, Next: Copying Conditions, Up: (dir) Texinfo ******* This manual is for GNU Texinfo (version 6.0, 26 June 2015), a documentation system that can produce both online information and a printed manual from a single source using semantic markup. The first part of this master menu lists the major nodes in this Info document, including the @-command and concept indices. The rest of the menu lists all the lower level nodes in the document. * Menu: * Copying Conditions:: Your rights. * Overview:: Texinfo in brief. * Texinfo Mode:: Using the GNU Emacs Texinfo mode. * Beginning a File:: What is at the beginning of a Texinfo file? * Ending a File:: What is at the end of a Texinfo file? * Chapter Structuring:: Creating chapters, sections, appendices, etc. * Nodes:: Writing nodes, the basic unit of Texinfo. * Menus:: Writing menus. * Cross References:: Writing cross references. * Marking Text:: Marking words and phrases as code, keyboard input, meta-syntactic variables, and the like. * Quotations and Examples:: Block quotations, examples, etc. * Lists and Tables:: Itemized or numbered lists, and tables. * Special Displays:: Floating figures and footnotes. * Indices:: Creating indices. * Insertions:: Inserting @-signs, braces, etc. * Breaks:: Forcing or preventing line and page breaks. * Definition Commands:: Describing functions and the like uniformly. * Internationalization:: Supporting languages other than English. * Conditionals:: Specifying text for only some output cases. * Defining New Texinfo Commands:: User-defined macros and aliases. * Include Files:: How to incorporate other Texinfo files. * Hardcopy:: Output for paper, with TeX. * Generic Translator texi2any:: 'texi2any', an all-purpose converter. * Creating and Installing Info Files:: Details on Info output. * Generating HTML:: Details on HTML output. * Command List:: All the Texinfo @-commands. * Tips:: Hints on how to write a Texinfo document. * Sample Texinfo Files:: Complete examples, including full texts. * Headings:: How to write page headings and footings. * Catching Mistakes:: How to find mistakes in formatting. * Info Format Specification:: Technical details of the Info file format. * GNU Free Documentation License:: Copying this manual. * Command and Variable Index:: A menu containing commands and variables. * General Index:: A menu covering many topics. -- The Detailed Node Listing -- Overview of Texinfo * Reporting Bugs:: Submitting effective bug reports. * Using Texinfo:: Create printed or online output. * Output Formats:: Overview of the supported output formats. * Adding Output Formats:: Man pages and implementing new formats. * Texinfo Document Structure:: How Texinfo manuals are usually arranged. * Info Files:: What is an Info file? * Printed Books:: Characteristics of a printed book or manual. * Formatting Commands:: @-commands are used for formatting. * Conventions:: General rules for writing a Texinfo file. * Comments:: Writing comments and ignored text in general. * Minimum:: What a Texinfo file must have. * Six Parts:: Usually, a Texinfo file has six parts. * Short Sample:: A short sample Texinfo file. * History:: Acknowledgements, contributors and genesis. Using Texinfo Mode * Texinfo Mode Overview:: How Texinfo mode can help you. * Emacs Editing:: Texinfo mode adds to GNU Emacs' general purpose editing features. * Inserting:: How to insert frequently used @-commands. * Showing the Structure:: How to show the structure of a file. * Updating Nodes and Menus:: How to update or create new nodes and menus. * Info Formatting:: How to format for Info. * Printing:: How to format and print part or all of a file. * Texinfo Mode Summary:: Summary of all the Texinfo mode commands. Updating Nodes and Menus * Updating Commands:: Five major updating commands. * Updating Requirements:: How to structure a Texinfo file for using the updating command. * Other Updating Commands:: How to indent descriptions, insert missing nodes lines, and update nodes in sequence. Beginning a Texinfo File * Sample Beginning:: A sample beginning for a Texinfo file. * Texinfo File Header:: The first lines. * Document Permissions:: Ensuring your manual is free. * Titlepage & Copyright Page:: Creating the title and copyright pages. * Contents:: How to create a table of contents. * The Top Node:: Creating the 'Top' node and master menu. * Global Document Commands:: Affecting formatting throughout. Texinfo File Header * First Line:: The first line of a Texinfo file. * Start of Header:: Formatting a region requires this. * @setfilename:: Tell Info the name of the Info file. * @settitle:: Create a title for the printed work. * End of Header:: Formatting a region requires this. Document Permissions * @copying:: Declare the document's copying permissions. * @insertcopying:: Where to insert the permissions. Title and Copyright Pages * @titlepage:: Create a title for the printed document. * @titlefont @center @sp:: The '@titlefont', '@center', and '@sp' commands. * @title @subtitle @author:: The '@title', '@subtitle', and '@author' commands. * Copyright:: How to write the copyright notice and include copying permissions. * Heading Generation:: Turn on page headings after the title and copyright pages. The 'Top' Node and Master Menu * Top Node Example:: * Master Menu Parts:: Global Document Commands * @documentdescription:: Document summary for the HTML output. * @setchapternewpage:: Start chapters on right-hand pages. * @headings:: An option for turning headings on and off and double or single sided printing. * @paragraphindent:: Specify paragraph indentation. * @firstparagraphindent:: Suppressing first paragraph indentation. * @exampleindent:: Specify environment indentation. Ending a Texinfo File * Printing Indices & Menus:: How to print an index in hardcopy and generate index menus in Info. * File End:: How to mark the end of a file. Chapter Structuring * Tree Structuring:: A manual is like an upside down tree ... * Structuring Command Types:: How to divide a manual into parts. * @chapter:: Chapter structuring. * @unnumbered @appendix:: * @majorheading @chapheading:: * @section:: * @unnumberedsec @appendixsec @heading:: * @subsection:: * @unnumberedsubsec @appendixsubsec @subheading:: * @subsubsection:: Commands for the lowest level sections. * @part:: Collections of chapters. * Raise/lower sections:: How to change commands' hierarchical level. Nodes * @node:: Creating nodes, in detail. * makeinfo Pointer Creation:: Letting makeinfo determine node pointers. * @anchor:: Defining arbitrary cross reference targets. * Node Menu Illustration:: A diagram, and sample nodes and menus. The '@node' Command * Node Names:: How to choose node and pointer names. * Writing a Node:: How to write an '@node' line. * Node Line Requirements:: Keep names unique. * First Node:: How to write a 'Top' node. * @top Command:: How to use the '@top' command. Menus * Menu Location:: Menus go at the ends of nodes. * Writing a Menu:: What is a menu? * Menu Parts:: A menu entry has three parts. * Less Cluttered Menu Entry:: Two part menu entry. * Menu Example:: Two and three part menu entries. * Other Info Files:: How to refer to a different Info file. Cross References * References:: What cross references are for. * Cross Reference Commands:: A summary of the different commands. * Cross Reference Parts:: A cross reference has several parts. * @xref:: Begin a reference with 'See' ... * Top Node Naming:: How to refer to the beginning of another file. * @ref:: A reference for the last part of a sentence. * @pxref:: How to write a parenthetical cross reference. * @inforef:: How to refer to an Info-only file. * @url:: How to refer to a uniform resource locator. * @cite:: How to refer to books not in the Info system. '@xref' * Reference Syntax:: What a reference looks like and requires. * One Argument:: '@xref' with one argument. * Two Arguments:: '@xref' with two arguments. * Three Arguments:: '@xref' with three arguments. * Four and Five Arguments:: '@xref' with four and five arguments. Marking Text, Words and Phrases * Indicating:: How to indicate definitions, files, etc. * Emphasis:: How to emphasize text. Indicating Definitions, Commands, etc. * Useful Highlighting:: Highlighting provides useful information. * @code:: Indicating program code. * @kbd:: Showing keyboard input. * @key:: Specifying keys. * @samp:: Indicating a literal sequence of characters. * @verb:: Indicating a verbatim sequence of characters. * @var:: Indicating metasyntactic variables. * @env:: Indicating environment variables. * @file:: Indicating file names. * @command:: Indicating command names. * @option:: Indicating option names. * @dfn:: Specifying definitions. * @abbr:: Indicating abbreviations. * @acronym:: Indicating acronyms. * @indicateurl:: Indicating an example url. * @email:: Indicating an electronic mail address. Emphasizing Text * @emph @strong:: How to emphasize text in Texinfo. * Smallcaps:: How to use the small caps font. * Fonts:: Various font commands for printed output. Quotations and Examples * Block Enclosing Commands:: Different constructs for different purposes. * @quotation:: Writing a quotation. * @indentedblock:: Block of text indented on left. * @example:: Writing an example in a fixed-width font. * @verbatim:: Writing a verbatim example. * @verbatiminclude:: Including a file verbatim. * @lisp:: Illustrating Lisp code. * @small...:: Examples in a smaller font. * @display:: Writing an example in the current font. * @format:: Writing an example without narrowed margins. * @exdent:: Undo indentation on a line. * @flushleft @flushright:: Pushing text flush left or flush right. * @raggedright:: Avoiding justification on the right. * @noindent:: Preventing paragraph indentation. * @indent:: Forcing paragraph indentation. * @cartouche:: Drawing rounded rectangles around text. Lists and Tables * Introducing Lists:: Texinfo formats lists for you. * @itemize:: How to construct a simple list. * @enumerate:: How to construct a numbered list. * Two-column Tables:: How to construct a two-column table. * Multi-column Tables:: How to construct generalized tables. Making a Two-column Table * @table:: How to construct a two-column table. * @ftable @vtable:: Automatic indexing for two-column tables. * @itemx:: How to put more entries in the first column. '@multitable': Multi-column Tables * Multitable Column Widths:: Defining multitable column widths. * Multitable Rows:: Defining multitable rows, with examples. Special Displays * Floats:: Figures, tables, and the like. * Images:: Including graphics and images. * Footnotes:: Writing footnotes. Floats * @float:: Producing floating material. * @caption @shortcaption:: Specifying descriptions for floats. * @listoffloats:: A table of contents for floats. Inserting Images * Image Syntax:: * Image Scaling:: Footnotes * Footnote Commands:: How to write a footnote in Texinfo. * Footnote Styles:: Controlling how footnotes appear in Info. Indices * Index Entries:: Choose different words for index entries. * Predefined Indices:: Use different indices for different kinds of entries. * Indexing Commands:: How to make an index entry. * Combining Indices:: How to combine indices. * New Indices:: How to define your own indices. Combining Indices * @syncodeindex:: How to merge two indices, using '@code' font for the merged-from index. * @synindex:: How to merge two indices, using the roman font for the merged-from index. Special Insertions * Special Characters:: Inserting @ {} , \ # * Inserting Quote Characters:: Inserting left and right quotes, in code. * Inserting Space:: Inserting the right amount of whitespace. * Inserting Accents:: Inserting accents and special characters. * Inserting Quotation Marks:: Inserting quotation marks. * Inserting Subscripts and Superscripts:: Inserting sub/superscripts. * Inserting Math:: Formatting mathematical expressions. * Glyphs for Text:: Inserting dots, bullets, currencies, etc. * Glyphs for Programming:: Indicating results of evaluation, expansion of macros, errors, etc. * Inserting Unicode:: Inserting a Unicode character by code point. Special Characters: Inserting @ {} , \ # * Inserting an Atsign:: '@@', '@atchar{}'. * Inserting Braces:: '@{ @}', '@l rbracechar{}'. * Inserting a Comma:: , and '@comma{}'. * Inserting a Backslash:: \ and '@backslashchar{}'. * Inserting a Hashsign:: # and '@hashchar{}'. Inserting Space * Multiple Spaces:: Inserting multiple spaces. * Not Ending a Sentence:: Sometimes a . doesn't end a sentence. * Ending a Sentence:: Sometimes it does. * @frenchspacing:: Specifying end-of-sentence spacing. * @dmn:: Formatting a dimension. Glyphs for Text * @TeX @LaTeX:: The TeX logos. * @copyright:: The copyright symbol (c in a circle). * @registeredsymbol:: The registered symbol (R in a circle). * @dots:: How to insert ellipses: ... and ... * @bullet:: How to insert a bullet: * * @euro:: How to insert the euro currency symbol. * @pounds:: How to insert the pounds currency symbol. * @textdegree:: How to insert the degrees symbol. * @minus:: How to insert a minus sign. * @geq @leq:: How to insert greater/less-than-or-equal signs. Glyphs for Programming * Glyphs Summary:: * @result:: How to show the result of expression. * @expansion:: How to indicate an expansion. * @print:: How to indicate generated output. * @error:: How to indicate an error message. * @equiv:: How to indicate equivalence. * @point:: How to indicate the location of point. * Click Sequences:: Inserting GUI usage sequences. Forcing and Preventing Breaks * Break Commands:: Summary of break-related commands. * Line Breaks:: Forcing line breaks. * @- @hyphenation:: Helping TeX with hyphenation points. * @allowcodebreaks:: Controlling line breaks within @code text. * @w:: Preventing unwanted line breaks in text. * @tie:: Inserting an unbreakable but varying space. * @sp:: Inserting blank lines. * @page:: Forcing the start of a new page. * @group:: Preventing unwanted page breaks. * @need:: Another way to prevent unwanted page breaks. Definition Commands * Def Cmd Template:: Writing descriptions using definition commands. * Def Cmd Continuation Lines:: Continuing the heading over source lines. * Optional Arguments:: Handling optional and repeated arguments. * @deffnx:: Group two or more 'first' lines. * Def Cmds in Detail:: Reference for all the definition commands. * Def Cmd Conventions:: Conventions for writing definitions. * Sample Function Definition:: An example. The Definition Commands * Functions Commands:: Commands for functions and similar entities. * Variables Commands:: Commands for variables and similar entities. * Typed Functions:: Commands for functions in typed languages. * Typed Variables:: Commands for variables in typed languages. * Data Types:: The definition command for data types. * Abstract Objects:: Commands for object-oriented programming. Object-Oriented Programming * Variables: Object-Oriented Variables. * Methods: Object-Oriented Methods. Internationalization * @documentlanguage:: Declaring the current language. * @documentencoding:: Declaring the input encoding. Conditionally Visible Text * Conditional Commands:: Text for a given format. * Conditional Not Commands:: Text for any format other than a given one. * Raw Formatter Commands:: Using raw formatter commands. * Inline Conditionals:: Brace-delimited conditional text. * @set @clear @value:: Variable tests and substitutions. * Testing for Texinfo Commands:: Testing if a Texinfo command is available. * Conditional Nesting:: Using conditionals inside conditionals. '@set', '@clear', and '@value' * @set @value:: Expand a flag variable to a string. * @ifset @ifclear:: Format a region if a flag is set. * @value Example:: An easy way to update edition information. Defining New Texinfo Commands * Defining Macros:: Defining and undefining new commands. * Invoking Macros:: Using a macro, once you've defined it. * Macro Details:: Limitations of Texinfo macros. * @alias:: Command aliases. * @definfoenclose:: Customized highlighting. * External Macro Processors:: '#line' directives. External Macro Processors: Line Directives * #line Directive:: * TeX: #line and TeX. * Syntax: #line Syntax Details. Include Files * Using Include Files:: How to use the '@include' command. * texinfo-multiple-files-update:: How to create and update nodes and menus when using included files. * Include Files Requirements:: 'texinfo-multiple-files-update' needs. * Sample Include File:: A sample outer file with included files within it; and a sample included file. * Include Files Evolution:: How use of the '@include' command has changed over time. Formatting and Printing Hardcopy * Use TeX:: Use TeX to format for hardcopy. * Format with texi2dvi:: The simplest way to format. * Format with tex/texindex:: Formatting with explicit shell commands. * Print with lpr:: How to print. * Within Emacs:: Printing from an Emacs shell. * Texinfo Mode Printing:: How to format and print in Texinfo mode. * Compile-Command:: How to print using Emacs's compile command. * Requirements Summary:: TeX formatting requirements summary. * Preparing for TeX:: What to do before you use TeX. * Overfull hboxes:: What are and what to do with overfull hboxes. * @smallbook:: How to print small format books and manuals. * A4 Paper:: How to print on A4 or A5 paper. * @pagesizes:: How to print with customized page sizes. * Cropmarks and Magnification:: How to print marks to indicate the size of pages and how to print scaled up output. * PDF Output:: Portable Document Format output. * Obtaining TeX:: How to obtain TeX. Format with tex/texindex * Formatting Partial Documents:: * Details of texindex:: 'texi2any': The Generic Translator for Texinfo * Reference Implementation:: 'texi2any': the reference implementation. * Invoking texi2any:: Running the translator from a shell. * texi2any Printed Output:: Calling 'texi2dvi'. * Pointer Validation:: How to check that pointers point somewhere. * Customization Variables:: Configuring 'texi2any'. * Internationalization of Document Strings:: Translating program-inserted text. * Invoking pod2texi:: Translating Perl pod to Texinfo. * texi2html:: An ancestor of 'texi2any'. Customization Variables * Commands: Customization Variables for @-Commands. * Options: Customization Variables and Options. * Other: Other Customization Variables. Creating and Installing Info Files * Creating an Info File:: * Installing an Info File:: Creating an Info File * makeinfo Advantages:: 'makeinfo' provides better error checking. * makeinfo in Emacs:: How to run 'makeinfo' from Emacs. * texinfo-format commands:: Two Info formatting commands written in Emacs Lisp are an alternative to 'makeinfo'. * Batch Formatting:: How to format for Info in Emacs batch mode. * Tag and Split Files:: How tagged and split files help Info to run better. Installing an Info File * Directory File:: The top level menu for all Info files. * New Info File:: Listing a new Info file. * Other Info Directories:: How to specify Info files that are located in other directories. * Installing Dir Entries:: How to specify what menu entry to add to the Info directory. * Invoking install-info:: 'install-info' options. Generating HTML * HTML Translation:: Details of the HTML output. * HTML Splitting:: How HTML output is split. * HTML CSS:: Influencing HTML output with Cascading Style Sheets. * HTML Xref:: Cross references in HTML output. HTML Cross References * Link Basics: HTML Xref Link Basics. * Node Expansion: HTML Xref Node Name Expansion. * Command Expansion: HTML Xref Command Expansion. * 8-bit Expansion: HTML Xref 8-bit Character Expansion. * Mismatch: HTML Xref Mismatch. * Configuration: HTML Xref Configuration. htmlxref.cnf. * Preserving links: HTML Xref Link Preservation. MANUAL-noderename.cnf. @-Command List * Command Syntax:: General syntax for varieties of @-commands. * Command Contexts:: Guidelines for which commands can be used where. Sample Texinfo Files * Short Sample Texinfo File:: * GNU Sample Texts:: * Verbatim Copying License:: * All-permissive Copying License:: Page Headings * Headings Introduced:: Conventions for using page headings. * Heading Format:: Standard page heading formats. * Heading Choice:: How to specify the type of page heading. * Custom Headings:: How to create your own headings and footings. Catching Mistakes * makeinfo Preferred:: 'makeinfo' finds errors. * Debugging with Info:: How to catch errors with Info formatting. * Debugging with TeX:: How to catch errors with TeX formatting. * Using texinfo-show-structure:: How to use 'texinfo-show-structure'. * Using occur:: How to list all lines containing a pattern. * Running Info-validate:: How to find badly referenced nodes. Finding Badly Referenced Nodes * Using Info-validate:: How to run 'Info-validate'. * Unsplit:: How to create an unsplit file. * Tagifying:: How to tagify a file. * Splitting:: How to split a file manually. Info Format Specification * General: Info Format General Layout. * Text: Info Format Text Constructs. Info Format General Layout * Whole: Info Format Whole Manual. Split vs. nonsplit manuals. * Preamble: Info Format Preamble. * Indirect: Info Format Indirect Table. * Tag table: Info Format Tag Table. * Local variables: Info Format Local Variables. * Regular nodes: Info Format Regular Nodes. Info Format Text Constructs * Menu: Info Format Menu. * Image: Info Format Image. * Printindex: Info Format Printindex. * Xref: Info Format Cross Reference. Documentation is like sex: when it is good, it is very, very good; and when it is bad, it is better than nothing. --Dick Brandon  File: texinfo.info, Node: Copying Conditions, Next: Overview, Prev: Top, Up: Top Texinfo Copying Conditions ************************** GNU Texinfo is "free software"; this means that everyone is free to use it and free to redistribute it on certain conditions. Texinfo is not in the public domain; it is copyrighted and there are restrictions on its distribution, but these restrictions are designed to permit everything that a good cooperating citizen would want to do. What is not allowed is to try to prevent others from further sharing any version of Texinfo that they might get from you. Specifically, we want to make sure that you have the right to give away copies of the programs that relate to Texinfo, that you receive source code or else can get it if you want it, that you can change these programs or use pieces of them in new free programs, and that you know you can do these things. To make sure that everyone has such rights, we have to forbid you to deprive anyone else of these rights. For example, if you distribute copies of the Texinfo related programs, you must give the recipients all the rights that you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code. And you must tell them their rights. Also, for our own protection, we must make certain that everyone finds out that there is no warranty for the programs that relate to Texinfo. If these programs are modified by someone else and passed on, we want their recipients to know that what they have is not what we distributed, so that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on our reputation. The precise conditions of the licenses for the programs currently being distributed that relate to Texinfo are found in the General Public Licenses that accompany them. This manual is covered by the GNU Free Documentation License (*note GNU Free Documentation License::).  File: texinfo.info, Node: Overview, Next: Texinfo Mode, Prev: Copying Conditions, Up: Top 1 Overview of Texinfo ********************* "Texinfo" is a documentation system that uses a single source file to produce both online information and printed output. This means that instead of writing two different documents, one for the online information and the other for a printed work, you need write only one document. Therefore, when the work is revised, you need revise only that one document. Texinfo's markup commands are almost entirely "semantic"; that is, they specify the intended meaning of text in the document, rather than physical formatting instructions. Texinfo was devised for the purpose of writing software documentation and manuals. It is not, and was never intended to be, a general-purpose formatting program. If you need to lay out a newspaper, devise a glossy magazine ad, or follow the exact formatting requirements of a publishing house, Texinfo is not the simplest tool. On the other hand, if you want to write a good manual for your program, Texinfo has many features that will make your job easier. Overall, it's intended to let you concentrate on the content, and thus provides almost no commands for controlling the final formatting. The first syllable of "Texinfo" is pronounced like "speck", not "hex". This odd pronunciation is derived from, but is not the same as, the pronunciation of TeX. In the word TeX, the 'X' is actually the Greek letter "chi" rather than the English letter "ex". Pronounce TeX as if the 'X' were the last sound in the name 'Bach'; but pronounce Texinfo as if the 'x' were a 'k'. Spell "Texinfo" with a capital "T" and the other letters in lowercase. Manuals for most GNU packages are written in Texinfo, and available online at . * Menu: * Reporting Bugs:: Submitting effective bug reports. * Using Texinfo:: Create printed or online output. * Output Formats:: Overview of the supported output formats. * Adding Output Formats:: Man pages and implementing new formats. * Texinfo Document Structure:: How Texinfo manuals are usually arranged. * Info Files:: What is an Info file? * Printed Books:: Characteristics of a printed book or manual. * Formatting Commands:: @-commands are used for formatting. * Conventions:: General rules for writing a Texinfo file. * Comments:: Writing comments and ignored text in general. * Minimum:: What a Texinfo file must have. * Six Parts:: Usually, a Texinfo file has six parts. * Short Sample:: A short sample Texinfo file. * History:: Acknowledgements, contributors and genesis.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Reporting Bugs, Next: Using Texinfo, Up: Overview 1.1 Reporting Bugs ================== We welcome bug reports and suggestions for any aspect of the Texinfo system: programs, documentation, installation, etc. Please email them to . You can get the latest version of Texinfo via its home page, . For bug reports, please include enough information for the maintainers to reproduce the problem. Generally speaking, that means: * The version number of Texinfo and the program(s) or manual(s) involved. * The contents of any input files necessary to reproduce the bug. * Precisely how you ran any program(s) involved. * A description of the problem and samples of any erroneous output. * Hardware and operating system names and versions. * Anything else that you think would be helpful. When in doubt whether something is needed or not, include it. It's better to include too much than to leave out something important. It is critical to send an actual input file that reproduces the problem. What's not critical is to "narrow down" the example to the smallest possible input--the actual input with which you discovered the bug will suffice. (Of course, if you do do experiments, the smaller the input file, the better.) Patches are most welcome; if possible, please make them with 'diff -c' (*note (diffutils)Top::) and include 'ChangeLog' entries (*note (emacs)Change Log::), and follow the existing coding style.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Using Texinfo, Next: Output Formats, Prev: Reporting Bugs, Up: Overview 1.2 Using Texinfo ================= Using Texinfo, you can create a printed document (via the TeX typesetting system) with the normal features of a book, including chapters, sections, cross references, and indices. From the same Texinfo source file, you can create an Info file with special features to make documentation browsing easy. Also from that same source file, you can create an HTML output file suitable for use with a web browser, a Docbook file, or a transliteration in XML format. See the next section for details and sample commands to generate output from the source (*note Output Formats::). TeX works with virtually all printers; Info works with virtually all computer terminals; the HTML output works with virtually all web browsers. Thus Texinfo and its output can be used by almost any computer user. A Texinfo source file is a plain ASCII file containing text interspersed with "@-commands" (words preceded by an '@') that tell the Texinfo processors what to do. You can edit a Texinfo file with any text editor, but it is especially convenient to use GNU Emacs since that editor has a special mode, called Texinfo mode, that provides various Texinfo-related features. (*Note Texinfo Mode::.) Texinfo is the official documentation format of the GNU project. More information is available at the GNU documentation web page (http://www.gnu.org/doc/).  File: texinfo.info, Node: Output Formats, Next: Adding Output Formats, Prev: Using Texinfo, Up: Overview 1.3 Output Formats ================== Here is a brief overview of the output formats currently supported by Texinfo. Info (Generated via 'makeinfo'.) Info format is mostly a plain text transliteration of the Texinfo source. It adds a few control characters to separate nodes and provide navigational information for menus, cross references, indices, and so on. The Emacs Info subsystem (*note (info)Top::), and the standalone 'info' program (*note (info-stnd)Top::), among others, can read these files. *Note Info Files::, and *note Creating and Installing Info Files::. Plain text (Generated via 'makeinfo --plaintext'.) This is almost the same as Info output with the navigational control characters are omitted. HTML (Generated via 'makeinfo --html'.) HTML, standing for Hyper Text Markup Language, has become the most commonly used language for writing documents on the World Wide Web. Web browsers, such as Mozilla, Lynx, and Emacs-W3, can render this language online. There are many versions of HTML, both different standards and browser-specific variations. 'makeinfo' tries to use a subset of the language that can be interpreted by any common browser, intentionally not using many newer or less widely-supported tags. Although the native output is thus rather plain, it can be customized at various levels, if desired. For details of the HTML language and much related information, see . *Note Generating HTML::. DVI (Generated via 'texi2dvi'.) The DeVIce Independent binary format is output by the TeX typesetting program (). This is then read by a DVI 'driver', which knows the actual device-specific commands that can be viewed or printed, notably Dvips for translation to PostScript (*note (dvips)Top::) and Xdvi for viewing on an X display (). *Note Hardcopy::. (Be aware that the Texinfo language is very different from and much stricter than TeX's usual languages: plain TeX, LaTeX, ConTeXt, etc.) PostScript (Generated via 'texi2dvi --ps'.) PostScript is a page description language that became widely used around 1985 and is still used today. gives a basic description and more preferences. By default, Texinfo uses the 'dvips' program to convert TeX's DVI output to PostScript. *Note (dvips)Top::. PDF (Generated via 'texi2dvi --pdf' or 'texi2pdf'.) This format was developed by Adobe Systems for portable document interchange, based on their previous PostScript language. It can represent the exact appearance of a document, including fonts and graphics, and supporting arbitrary scaling. It is intended to be platform-independent and easily viewable, among other design goals; and have some background. By default, Texinfo uses the 'pdftex' program, an extension of TeX, to output PDF; see . *Note PDF Output::. Docbook (Generated via 'makeinfo --docbook'.) This is an XML-based format developed some years ago, primarily for technical documentation. It therefore bears some resemblance, in broad outline, to Texinfo. See . Various converters from Docbook _to_ Texinfo have also been developed; see the Texinfo web pages. XML (Generated via 'makeinfo --xml'.) XML is a generic syntax specification usable for any sort of content (a reference is at ). The 'makeinfo' XML output, unlike all the other output formats, is a transliteration of the Texinfo source rather than processed output. That is, it translates the Texinfo markup commands into XML syntax, for further processing by XML tools. The details of the output are defined in an XML DTD as usual, which is contained in a file 'texinfo.dtd' included in the Texinfo source distribution and available via the Texinfo web pages. The XML contains enough information to recreate the original content, except for syntactic constructs such as Texinfo macros and conditionals. The Texinfo source distribution includes a utility script 'txixml2texi' to do that backward transformation.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Adding Output Formats, Next: Texinfo Document Structure, Prev: Output Formats, Up: Overview 1.4 Adding Output Formats ========================= The output formats in the previous section handle a wide variety of usage, but of course there is always room for more. From time to time, proposals are made to generate traditional Unix man pages from Texinfo source. However, because man pages have a strict conventional format, creating a good man page requires a completely different source than the typical Texinfo applications of writing a good user tutorial and/or a good reference manual. This makes generating man pages incompatible with the Texinfo design goal of not having to document the same information in different ways for different output formats. You might as well write the man page directly. As an alternative way to support man pages, you may find the program 'help2man' to be useful. It generates a traditional man page from the '--help' output of a program. In fact, the man pages for the programs in the Texinfo distribution are generated with this. It is GNU software written by Brendan O'Dea, available from . If you are a programmer and would like to contribute to the GNU project by implementing additional output formats for Texinfo, that would be excellent. The way to do this that would be most useful is to write a new back-end for 'texi2any', our reference implementation of a Texinfo parser; it creates a tree representation of the Texinfo input that you can use for the conversion. The documentation in the source file 'tp/Texinfo/Convert/Converter.pm' is a good place to start. *Note Generic Translator texi2any::. Another viable approach is use the Texinfo XML output from 'texi2any' as your input. This XML is an essentially complete representation of the input, but without the Texinfo syntax and option peculiarities, as described above. If you still cannot resist the temptation of writing a new program that reads Texinfo source directly, let us give some more caveats: please do not underestimate the amount of work required. Texinfo is by no means a simple language to parse correctly, and remains under development, so you would be committing to an ongoing task. At a minimum, please check that the extensive tests of the language that come with 'texi2any' give correct results with your new program.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Texinfo Document Structure, Next: Info Files, Prev: Adding Output Formats, Up: Overview 1.5 Texinfo Document Structure ============================== Texinfo documents most usefully have a double structure, reflecting the double purposes of printed and online output. For printed output (DVI, PDF, ...), with physical pages, there are chapters, sections, subsections, etc. For online output (Info, HTML, ...), with interactive navigation and no physical pages, there are so-called "nodes". Typically, the sectioning structure and the node structure are completely parallel, with one node for each chapter, section, etc., and with the nodes following the same hierarchical arrangement as the sectioning. Thus, if a node is at the logical level of a chapter, its child nodes are at the level of sections; similarly, the child nodes of sections are at the level of subsections. Each "node" has a name, and contains the discussion of one topic. Along with the text for the user to read, each node also has pointers to other nodes, identified in turn by their own names. Info readers display one node at a time, and provide commands for the user to move to related nodes. The HTML output can be similarly navigated. The names of child nodes are listed in a "menu" within the parent node; for example, a node corresponding to a chapter would have a menu of the sections in that chapter. The menus allow the user to move to the child nodes in a natural way in the online output. In addition, nodes at the same level are formed into a chain with 'Next' and 'Previous' pointers. As you might imagine, the 'Next' pointer links to the next node (section), and the 'Previous' pointer links to the previous node (section). Thus, for example, all the nodes that are at the level of sections within a chapter are linked together, and the order in this chain is the same as the order of the children in the menu of parent chapter. Each child node records the parent node name as its 'Up' pointer. The last child has no 'Next' pointer, and the first child has the parent both as its 'Previous' and as its 'Up' pointer. In addition to menus and 'Next', 'Previous', and 'Up' pointers, Texinfo provides pointers of another kind for cross references, that can be sprinkled throughout the text. This is usually the best way to represent links that do not fit a hierarchical structure. Although it is technically possible to create Texinfo documents with only one structure or the other, or for the two structures not to be parallel, or for either the sectioning or node structure to be abnormally formed, etc., this is _not at all recommended_. To the best of our knowledge, all the Texinfo manuals currently in general use do follow the conventional parallel structure.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Info Files, Next: Printed Books, Prev: Texinfo Document Structure, Up: Overview 1.6 Info Files ============== As mentioned above, Info format is mostly a plain text transliteration of the Texinfo source, with the addition of a few control characters to separate nodes and provide navigational information, so that Info-reading programs can operate on it. Info files are nearly always created by processing a Texinfo source document. 'makeinfo', also known as 'texi2any', is the principal command that converts a Texinfo file into an Info file; *note Generic Translator texi2any::. Generally, you enter an Info file through a node that by convention is named 'Top'. This node normally contains just a brief summary of the file's purpose, and a large menu through which the rest of the file is reached. From this node, you can either traverse the file systematically by going from node to node, or you can go to a specific node listed in the main menu, or you can search the index menus and then go directly to the node that has the information you want. Alternatively, with the standalone Info program, you can specify specific menu items on the command line (*note (info)Top::). If you want to read through an Info file in sequence, as if it were a printed manual, you can hit repeatedly, or you get the whole file with the advanced Info command 'g *'. (*Note Advanced Info commands: (info)Advanced.) The 'dir' file in the 'info' directory serves as the departure point for the whole Info system. From it, you can reach the 'Top' nodes of each of the documents in a complete Info system. If you wish to refer to an Info file via a URI, you can use the (unofficial) syntax exemplified by the following. This works with Emacs/W3, for example: info:emacs#Dissociated%20Press info:///usr/info/emacs#Dissociated%20Press info://localhost/usr/info/emacs#Dissociated%20Press The 'info' program itself does not follow URIs of any kind.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Printed Books, Next: Formatting Commands, Prev: Info Files, Up: Overview 1.7 Printed Books ================= A Texinfo file can be formatted and typeset as a printed book or manual. To do this, you need TeX, a sophisticated typesetting program written by Donald Knuth of Stanford University. A Texinfo-based book is similar to any other typeset, printed work: it can have a title page, copyright page, table of contents, and preface, as well as chapters, numbered or unnumbered sections and subsections, page headers, cross references, footnotes, and indices. TeX is a general purpose typesetting program. Texinfo provides a file 'texinfo.tex' that contains information (definitions or "macros") that TeX uses when it typesets a Texinfo file. ('texinfo.tex' tells TeX how to convert the Texinfo @-commands to TeX commands, which TeX can then process to create the typeset document.) 'texinfo.tex' contains the specifications for printing a document. You can get the latest version of 'texinfo.tex' from the Texinfo home page, . In the United States, documents are most often printed on 8.5 inch by 11 inch pages (216mm by 280mm); this is the default size. But you can also print for 7 inch by 9.25 inch pages (178mm by 235mm, the '@smallbook' size; or on A4 or A5 size paper ('@afourpaper', '@afivepaper'). *Note @smallbook::, and *note A4 Paper::. TeX is freely distributable. It is written in a superset of Pascal for literate programming called WEB and can be compiled either in Pascal or (by using a conversion program that comes with the TeX distribution) in C. TeX is very powerful and has a great many features. Because a Texinfo file must be able to present information both on a character-only terminal in Info form and in a typeset book, the formatting commands that Texinfo supports are necessarily limited. *Note Obtaining TeX::, for information on acquiring TeX. It is not part of the Texinfo distribution.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Formatting Commands, Next: Conventions, Prev: Printed Books, Up: Overview 1.8 @-commands ============== In a Texinfo file, the commands you write to describe the contents of the manual are preceded by an '@' character; they are called "@-commands". For example, '@node' is the command to indicate a node and '@chapter' is the command to indicate the start of a chapter. Almost all @ command names are entirely lowercase. Texinfo's @-commands are a strictly limited set of constructs. The strict limits are primarily intended to "force" you, the author, to concentrate on the writing and the content of your manual, rather than the details of the formatting. Depending on what they do or what arguments(1) they take, you need to write @-commands on lines of their own or as part of sentences: * Some commands are written at the start of a line and the rest of the line comprises the argument text, such as '@chapter' (which creates chapter titles). * Some commands can appear anywhere, generally within a sentence, and are followed by empty braces, such as '@dots{}' (which creates an ellipsis ...). * Some commands can appear anywhere, generally within a sentence, and are followed by the argument text in braces, such as '@code{a+1}' (which marks text as being code, 'a+1' being the argument in this case). * Some commands are written at the start of a line, with general text on following lines, terminated by a matching '@end' command on a line of its own. For example, '@example', then the lines of a coding example, then '@end example'. As a general rule, a command requires braces if it mingles among other text; but it does not need braces if it is on a line of its own. The non-alphabetic commands, such as '@:', are exceptions to the rule; they do not need braces. As you gain experience with Texinfo, you will rapidly learn how to write the different commands: the different ways to write commands actually make it easier to write and read Texinfo files than if all commands followed exactly the same syntax. *Note @-Command Syntax: Command Syntax, for all the details. ---------- Footnotes ---------- (1) The word "argument" comes from the way it is used in mathematics and does not refer to a dispute between two people; it refers to the information presented to the command. According to the 'Oxford English Dictionary', the word derives from the Latin for "to make clear, prove"; thus it came to mean 'the evidence offered as proof', which is to say, 'the information offered', which led to its mathematical meaning. In its other thread of derivation, the word came to mean 'to assert in a manner against which others may make counter assertions', which led to the meaning of 'argument' as a dispute.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Conventions, Next: Comments, Prev: Formatting Commands, Up: Overview 1.9 General Syntactic Conventions ================================= This section describes the general conventions used in all Texinfo documents. * All printable ASCII characters except '@', '{' and '}' can appear in a Texinfo file and stand for themselves. '@' is the escape character which introduces commands, while '{' and '}' are used to surround arguments to certain commands. To put one of these special characters into the document, put an '@' character in front of it, like this: '@@', '@{', and '@}'. * Texinfo supports the usual quotation marks used in English and in other languages; see *note Inserting Quotation Marks::. * Use three hyphens in a row, '---', to produce a long dash--like this (called an "em dash"), used for punctuation in sentences. Use two hyphens, '--', to produce a medium dash (called an "en dash"), used primarily for numeric ranges, as in "June 25-26". Use a single hyphen, '-', to produce a standard hyphen used in compound words. For display on the screen, Info reduces three hyphens to two and two hyphens to one (not transitively!). Of course, any number of hyphens in the source remain as they are in literal contexts, such as '@code' and '@example'. * Form feed ('CTRL-l') characters in the input are handled as follows: PDF/DVI In normal text, treated as ending any open paragraph; essentially ignored between paragraphs. Info Output as-is between paragraphs (their most common use); in other contexts, they may be treated as regular spaces (and thus consolidated with surrounding whitespace). HTML Written as a numeric entity except contexts where spaces are ignored; for example, in '@footnote{ ^L foo}', the form feed is ignored. XML Keep them everywhere; in attributes, escaped as '\f'; also, '\' is escaped as '\\' and newline as '\n'. Docbook Completely removed, as they are not allowed. As you can see, because of these differing requirements of the output formats, it's not possible to use form feeds completely portably. * *Caution:* Last, do not use tab characters in a Texinfo file! (Except perhaps in verbatim modes.) TeX uses variable-width fonts, which means that it is impractical at best to define a tab to work in all circumstances. Consequently, TeX treats tabs like single spaces, and that is not what they look like in the source. Furthermore, 'makeinfo' does nothing special with tabs, and thus a tab character in your input file will usually have a different appearance in the output. To avoid this problem, Texinfo mode in GNU Emacs inserts multiple spaces when you press the key. Also, you can run 'untabify' in Emacs to convert tabs in a region to multiple spaces, or use the 'unexpand' command from the shell.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Comments, Next: Minimum, Prev: Conventions, Up: Overview 1.10 Comments ============= You can write comments in a Texinfo file by using the '@comment' command, which may be abbreviated to '@c'. Such comments are for a person looking at the Texinfo source file. All the text on a line that follows either '@comment' or '@c' is a comment; the rest of the line does not appear in the visible output. (To be precise, the character after the '@c' or '@comment' must be something other than a dash or alphanumeric, or it will be taken as part of the command.) Often, you can write the '@comment' or '@c' in the middle of a line, and only the text that follows after the '@comment' or '@c' command does not appear; but some commands, such as '@settitle' and '@setfilename', work on a whole line. You cannot use '@comment' or '@c' within a line beginning with such a command. In cases of nested command invocations, complicated macro definitions, etc., '@c' and '@comment' may provoke an error when processing with TeX. Therefore, you can also use the 'DEL' character (ASCII 127 decimal, 0x7f hex, 0177 octal) as a true TeX comment character (catcode 14, in TeX internals). Everything on the line after the 'DEL' will be ignored. You can also have long stretches of text ignored by the Texinfo processors with the '@ignore' and '@end ignore' commands. Write each of these commands on a line of its own, starting each command at the beginning of the line. Text between these two commands does not appear in the processed output. You can use '@ignore' and '@end ignore' for writing comments. (For some caveats regarding nesting of such commands, *note Conditional Nesting::.)  File: texinfo.info, Node: Minimum, Next: Six Parts, Prev: Comments, Up: Overview 1.11 What a Texinfo File Must Have ================================== By convention, the name of a Texinfo file ends with (in order of preference) one of the extensions '.texinfo', '.texi', '.txi', or '.tex'. The longer extensions are preferred since they describe more clearly to a human reader the nature of the file. The shorter extensions are for operating systems that cannot handle long file names. In order to be made into a good printed manual and other output formats, a Texinfo file _must_ begin with lines like this: \input texinfo @setfilename INFO-FILE-NAME @settitle NAME-OF-MANUAL The contents of the file follow this beginning, and then you _must_ end the Texinfo source with a line like this: @bye Here's an explanation: * The '\input texinfo' line tells TeX to use the 'texinfo.tex' file, which tells TeX how to translate the Texinfo @-commands into TeX typesetting commands. (Note the use of the backslash, '\'; this is correct for TeX.) * The '@setfilename' line provides a name for the Info file and tells TeX to open auxiliary files. *All text before '@setfilename' is ignored!* * The '@settitle' line specifies a title for the page headers (or footers) of the printed manual, and the default title and document description for the '' in HTML. Strictly speaking, '@settitle' is optional--if you don't mind your document being titled 'Untitled'. * The '@bye' line at the end of the file on a line of its own tells the formatters that the file is ended and to stop formatting. If you use Emacs, it is also useful to include mode setting and start-of-header and end-of-header lines at the beginning of a Texinfo file, like this: \input texinfo @c -*-texinfo-*- @c %**start of header @setfilename INFO-FILE-NAME @settitle NAME-OF-MANUAL @c %**end of header In the first line, '-*-texinfo-*-' causes Emacs to switch into Texinfo mode when you edit the file. The '@c ...header' lines above which surround the '@setfilename' and '@settitle' lines allow you to process, within Emacs, just part of the Texinfo source. (*Note Start of Header::.) Furthermore, you will usually provide a Texinfo file with a title page, indices, and the like, all of which are explained in this manual. But the minimum, which can be useful for short documents, is just the three lines at the beginning and the one line at the end.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Six Parts, Next: Short Sample, Prev: Minimum, Up: Overview 1.12 Six Parts of a Texinfo File ================================ Generally, a Texinfo file contains more than the minimal beginning and end described in the previous section--it usually contains the six parts listed below. These are described fully in the following sections. 1. Header The "Header" names the file, tells TeX which definitions file to use, and other such housekeeping tasks. 2. Summary and Copyright The "Summary and Copyright" segment describes the document and contains the copyright notice and copying permissions. This is done with the '@copying' command. 3. Title and Copyright The "Title and Copyright" segment contains the title and copyright pages for the printed manual. The segment must be enclosed between '@titlepage' and '@end titlepage' commands. The title and copyright page appear only in the printed manual. 4. 'Top' Node and Master Menu The 'Top' node starts off the online output; it does not appear in the printed manual. We recommend including the copying permissions here as well as the segments above. And it contains at least a top-level menu listing the chapters, and possibly a "Master Menu" listing all the nodes in the entire document. 5. Body The "Body" of the document is typically structured like a traditional book or encyclopedia, but it may be free form. 6. End The "End" segment may contain commands for printing indices, and closes with the '@bye' command on a line of its own.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Short Sample, Next: History, Prev: Six Parts, Up: Overview 1.13 A Short Sample Texinfo File ================================ Here is a very short but complete Texinfo file, in the six conventional parts enumerated in the previous section, so you can see how Texinfo source appears in practice. The first three parts of the file, from '\input texinfo' through to '@end titlepage', look more intimidating than they are: most of the material is standard boilerplate; when writing a manual, you simply change the names as appropriate. *Note Beginning a File::, for full documentation on the commands listed here. *Note GNU Sample Texts::, for the full texts to be used in GNU manuals. In the following, the sample text is _indented_; comments on it are not. The complete file, without interspersed comments, is shown in *note Short Sample Texinfo File::. Part 1: Header -------------- The header does not appear in either the Info file or the printed output. It sets various parameters, including the name of the Info file and the title used in the header. \input texinfo @c -*-texinfo-*- @c %**start of header @setfilename sample.info @settitle Sample Manual 1.0 @c %**end of header Part 2: Summary Description and Copyright ----------------------------------------- A real manual includes more text here, according to the license under which it is distributed. *Note GNU Sample Texts::. @copying This is a short example of a complete Texinfo file, version 1.0. Copyright @copyright{} 2015 Free Software Foundation, Inc. @end copying Part 3: Titlepage, Contents, Copyright -------------------------------------- The titlepage segment does not appear in the online output, only in the printed manual. We use the '@insertcopying' command to include the permission text from the previous section, instead of writing it out again; it is output on the back of the title page. The '@contents' command generates a table of contents. @titlepage @title Sample Title @c The following two commands start the copyright page. @page @vskip 0pt plus 1filll @insertcopying @end titlepage @c Output the table of contents at the beginning. @contents Part 4: 'Top' Node and Master Menu ---------------------------------- The 'Top' node contains the master menu for the Info file. Since the printed manual uses a table of contents rather than a menu, it excludes the 'Top' node. We repeat the short description from the beginning of the '@copying' text, but there's no need to repeat the copyright information, so we don't use '@insertcopying' here. The '@top' command itself helps 'makeinfo' determine the relationships between nodes. @ifnottex @node Top @top Short Sample This is a short sample Texinfo file. @end ifnottex @menu * First Chapter:: The first chapter is the only chapter in this sample. * Index:: Complete index. @end menu Part 5: The Body of the Document -------------------------------- The body segment contains all the text of the document, but not the indices or table of contents. This example illustrates a node and a chapter containing an enumerated list. @node First Chapter @chapter First Chapter @cindex chapter, first This is the first chapter. @cindex index entry, another Here is a numbered list. @enumerate @item This is the first item. @item This is the second item. @end enumerate Part 6: The End of the Document ------------------------------- The end segment contains commands for generating an index in a node and unnumbered chapter of its own, and the '@bye' command that marks the end of the document. @node Index @unnumbered Index @printindex cp @bye Some Results ------------ Here is what the contents of the first chapter of the sample look like: This is the first chapter. Here is a numbered list. 1. This is the first item. 2. This is the second item.  File: texinfo.info, Node: History, Prev: Short Sample, Up: Overview 1.14 History ============ Richard M. Stallman invented the Texinfo format, wrote the initial processors, and created Edition 1.0 of this manual. Robert J. Chassell greatly revised and extended the manual, starting with Edition 1.1. Brian Fox was responsible for the standalone Texinfo distribution until version 3.8, and originally wrote the standalone 'makeinfo' and 'info' programs. Karl Berry has continued maintenance since Texinfo 3.8 (manual edition 2.22). Our thanks go out to all who helped improve this work, particularly the indefatigable Eli Zaretskii and Andreas Schwab, who have provided patches beyond counting. Franc,ois Pinard and David D. Zuhn, tirelessly recorded and reported mistakes and obscurities. Zack Weinberg did the impossible by implementing the macro syntax in 'texinfo.tex'. Thanks to Melissa Weisshaus for her frequent reviews of nearly similar editions. Dozens of others have contributed patches and suggestions, they are gratefully acknowledged in the 'ChangeLog' file. Our mistakes are our own. Beginnings ---------- In the 1970's at CMU, Brian Reid developed a program and format named Scribe to mark up documents for printing. It used the '@' character to introduce commands, as Texinfo does. Much more consequentially, it strove to describe document contents rather than formatting, an idea wholeheartedly adopted by Texinfo. Meanwhile, people at MIT developed another, not too dissimilar format called Bolio. This then was converted to using TeX as its typesetting language: BoTeX. The earliest BoTeX version seems to have been 0.02 on October 31, 1984. BoTeX could only be used as a markup language for documents to be printed, not for online documents. Richard Stallman (RMS) worked on both Bolio and BoTeX. He also developed a nifty on-line help format called Info, and then combined BoTeX and Info to create Texinfo, a mark up language for text that is intended to be read both online and as printed hard copy. Moving forward, the original translator to create Info was written (primarily by RMS and Bob Chassell) in Emacs Lisp, namely the 'texinfo-format-buffer' and other functions. In the early 1990s, Brian Fox reimplemented the conversion program in C, now called 'makeinfo'. Reimplementing in Perl ---------------------- In 2012, the C 'makeinfo' was itself replaced by a Perl implementation generically called 'texi2any'. This version supports the same level of output customization as 'texi2html', an independent program originally written by Lionel Cons, later with substantial work by many others. The many additional features needed to make 'texi2html' a replacement for 'makeinfo' were implemented by Patrice Dumas. The first never-released version of 'texi2any' was based on the 'texi2html' code. That implementation, however, was abandoned in favor of the current program, which parses the Texinfo input into a tree for processing. It still supports nearly all the features of 'texi2html'. The new Perl program is much slower than the old C program. We hope the speed gap will close in the future, but it may not ever be entirely comparable. So why did we switch? In short, we intend and hope that the present program will be much easier than the previous C implementation of 'makeinfo' to extend to different output styles, back-end output formats, and all other customizations. In more detail: * HTML customization. Many GNU and other free software packages had been happily using the HTML customization features in 'texi2html' for years. Thus, in effect two independent implementations of the Texinfo language had developed, and keeping them in sync was not simple. Adding the HTML customization possible in 'texi2html' to a C program would have been an enormous effort. * Unicode, and multilingual support generally, especially of east Asian languages. Although of course it's perfectly plausible to write such support in C, in the particular case of 'makeinfo', it would have been tantamount to rewriting the entire program. In Perl, much of that comes essentially for free. * Additional back-ends. The 'makeinfo' code had become convoluted to the point where adding a new back-end was quite complex, requiring complex interactions with existing back-ends. In contrast, our Perl implementation provides a clean tree-based representation for all back-ends to work from. People have requested numerous different back-ends (LaTeX, the latest (X)HTML, ...), and they will now be much more feasible to implement. Which leads to the last item: * Making contributions easier. In general, due to the cleaner structure, the Perl program should be considerably easier than the C for anyone to read and contribute to, with the resulting obvious benefits. *Note Reference Implementation::, for more on the rationale for and role of 'texi2any'.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Texinfo Mode, Next: Beginning a File, Prev: Overview, Up: Top 2 Using Texinfo Mode ******************** You may edit a Texinfo file with any text editor you choose. A Texinfo file is no different from any other ASCII file. However, GNU Emacs comes with a special mode, called Texinfo mode, that provides Emacs commands and tools to help ease your work. This chapter describes features of GNU Emacs' Texinfo mode but not any features of the Texinfo formatting language. So if you are reading this manual straight through from the beginning, you may want to skim through this chapter briefly and come back to it after reading succeeding chapters which describe the Texinfo formatting language in detail. * Menu: * Texinfo Mode Overview:: How Texinfo mode can help you. * Emacs Editing:: Texinfo mode adds to GNU Emacs' general purpose editing features. * Inserting:: How to insert frequently used @-commands. * Showing the Structure:: How to show the structure of a file. * Updating Nodes and Menus:: How to update or create new nodes and menus. * Info Formatting:: How to format for Info. * Printing:: How to format and print part or all of a file. * Texinfo Mode Summary:: Summary of all the Texinfo mode commands.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Texinfo Mode Overview, Next: Emacs Editing, Up: Texinfo Mode 2.1 Texinfo Mode Overview ========================= Texinfo mode provides special features for working with Texinfo files. You can: * Insert frequently used @-commands. * Automatically create '@node' lines. * Show the structure of a Texinfo source file. * Automatically create or update the 'Next', 'Previous', and 'Up' pointers of a node. * Automatically create or update menus. * Automatically create a master menu. * Format a part or all of a file for Info. * Typeset and print part or all of a file. Perhaps the two most helpful features are those for inserting frequently used @-commands and for creating node pointers and menus.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Emacs Editing, Next: Inserting, Prev: Texinfo Mode Overview, Up: Texinfo Mode 2.2 The Usual GNU Emacs Editing Commands ======================================== In most cases, the usual Text mode commands work the same in Texinfo mode as they do in Text mode. Texinfo mode adds new editing commands and tools to GNU Emacs' general purpose editing features. The major difference concerns filling. In Texinfo mode, the paragraph separation variable and syntax table are redefined so that Texinfo commands that should be on lines of their own are not inadvertently included in paragraphs. Thus, the 'M-q' ('fill-paragraph') command will refill a paragraph but not mix an indexing command on a line adjacent to it into the paragraph. In addition, Texinfo mode sets the 'page-delimiter' variable to the value of 'texinfo-chapter-level-regexp'; by default, this is a regular expression matching the commands for chapters and their equivalents, such as appendices. With this value for the page delimiter, you can jump from chapter title to chapter title with the 'C-x ]' ('forward-page') and 'C-x [' ('backward-page') commands and narrow to a chapter with the 'C-x n p' ('narrow-to-page') command. (*Note (emacs)Pages::, for details about the page commands.) You may name a Texinfo file however you wish, but the convention is to end a Texinfo file name with one of the extensions '.texinfo', '.texi', '.txi', or '.tex'. A longer extension is preferred, since it is explicit, but a shorter extension may be necessary for operating systems that limit the length of file names. GNU Emacs automatically enters Texinfo mode when you visit a file with a '.texinfo', '.texi' or '.txi' extension. Also, Emacs switches to Texinfo mode when you visit a file that has '-*-texinfo-*-' in its first line. If ever you are in another mode and wish to switch to Texinfo mode, type 'M-x texinfo-mode'. Like all other Emacs features, you can customize or enhance Texinfo mode as you wish. In particular, the keybindings are very easy to change. The keybindings described here are the default or standard ones.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Inserting, Next: Showing the Structure, Prev: Emacs Editing, Up: Texinfo Mode 2.3 Inserting Frequently Used Commands ====================================== Texinfo mode provides commands to insert various frequently used @-commands into the buffer. You can use these commands to save keystrokes. The insert commands are invoked by typing 'C-c' twice and then the first letter of the @-command: 'C-c C-c c' 'M-x texinfo-insert-@code' Insert '@code{}' and put the cursor between the braces. 'C-c C-c d' 'M-x texinfo-insert-@dfn' Insert '@dfn{}' and put the cursor between the braces. 'C-c C-c e' 'M-x texinfo-insert-@end' Insert '@end' and attempt to insert the correct following word, such as 'example' or 'table'. (This command does not handle nested lists correctly, but inserts the word appropriate to the immediately preceding list.) 'C-c C-c i' 'M-x texinfo-insert-@item' Insert '@item' and put the cursor at the beginning of the next line. 'C-c C-c k' 'M-x texinfo-insert-@kbd' Insert '@kbd{}' and put the cursor between the braces. 'C-c C-c n' 'M-x texinfo-insert-@node' Insert '@node' and a comment line listing the sequence for the 'Next', 'Previous', and 'Up' nodes. Leave point after the '@node'. 'C-c C-c o' 'M-x texinfo-insert-@noindent' Insert '@noindent' and put the cursor at the beginning of the next line. 'C-c C-c s' 'M-x texinfo-insert-@samp' Insert '@samp{}' and put the cursor between the braces. 'C-c C-c t' 'M-x texinfo-insert-@table' Insert '@table' followed by a and leave the cursor after the . 'C-c C-c v' 'M-x texinfo-insert-@var' Insert '@var{}' and put the cursor between the braces. 'C-c C-c x' 'M-x texinfo-insert-@example' Insert '@example' and put the cursor at the beginning of the next line. 'C-c C-c {' 'M-x texinfo-insert-braces' Insert '{}' and put the cursor between the braces. 'C-c }' 'C-c ]' 'M-x up-list' Move from between a pair of braces forward past the closing brace. Typing 'C-c ]' is easier than typing 'C-c }', which is, however, more mnemonic; hence the two keybindings. (Also, you can move out from between braces by typing 'C-f'.) To put a command such as '@code{...}' around an _existing_ word, position the cursor in front of the word and type 'C-u 1 C-c C-c c'. This makes it easy to edit existing plain text. The value of the prefix argument tells Emacs how many words following point to include between braces--'1' for one word, '2' for two words, and so on. Use a negative argument to enclose the previous word or words. If you do not specify a prefix argument, Emacs inserts the @-command string and positions the cursor between the braces. This feature works only for those @-commands that operate on a word or words within one line, such as '@kbd' and '@var'. This set of insert commands was created after analyzing the frequency with which different @-commands are used in the 'GNU Emacs Manual' and the 'GDB Manual'. If you wish to add your own insert commands, you can bind a keyboard macro to a key, use abbreviations, or extend the code in 'texinfo.el'. 'C-c C-c C-d' ('texinfo-start-menu-description') is an insert command that works differently from the other insert commands. It inserts a node's section or chapter title in the space for the description in a menu entry line. (A menu entry has three parts, the entry name, the node name, and the description. Only the node name is required, but a description helps explain what the node is about. *Note The Parts of a Menu: Menu Parts.) To use 'texinfo-start-menu-description', position point in a menu entry line and type 'C-c C-c C-d'. The command looks for and copies the title that goes with the node name, and inserts the title as a description; it positions point at beginning of the inserted text so you can edit it. The function does not insert the title if the menu entry line already contains a description. This command is only an aid to writing descriptions; it does not do the whole job. You must edit the inserted text since a title tends to use the same words as a node name but a useful description uses different words.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Showing the Structure, Next: Updating Nodes and Menus, Prev: Inserting, Up: Texinfo Mode 2.4 Showing the Sectioning Structure of a File ============================================== You can show the sectioning structure of a Texinfo file by using the 'C-c C-s' command ('texinfo-show-structure'). This command lists the lines that begin with the @-commands for '@chapter', '@section', and the like. It constructs what amounts to a table of contents. These lines are displayed in another buffer called the '*Occur*' buffer. In that buffer, you can position the cursor over one of the lines and use the 'C-c C-c' command ('occur-mode-goto-occurrence'), to jump to the corresponding spot in the Texinfo file. 'C-c C-s' 'M-x texinfo-show-structure' Show the '@chapter', '@section', and such lines of a Texinfo file. 'C-c C-c' 'M-x occur-mode-goto-occurrence' Go to the line in the Texinfo file corresponding to the line under the cursor in the '*Occur*' buffer. If you call 'texinfo-show-structure' with a prefix argument by typing 'C-u C-c C-s', it will list not only those lines with the @-commands for '@chapter', '@section', and the like, but also the '@node' lines. You can use 'texinfo-show-structure' with a prefix argument to check whether the 'Next', 'Previous', and 'Up' pointers of an '@node' line are correct. Often, when you are working on a manual, you will be interested only in the structure of the current chapter. In this case, you can mark off the region of the buffer that you are interested in by using the 'C-x n n' ('narrow-to-region') command and 'texinfo-show-structure' will work on only that region. To see the whole buffer again, use 'C-x n w' ('widen'). (*Note (emacs)Narrowing::, for more information about the narrowing commands.) In addition to providing the 'texinfo-show-structure' command, Texinfo mode sets the value of the page delimiter variable to match the chapter-level @-commands. This enables you to use the 'C-x ]' ('forward-page') and 'C-x [' ('backward-page') commands to move forward and backward by chapter, and to use the 'C-x n p' ('narrow-to-page') command to narrow to a chapter. *Note (emacs)Pages::, for more information about the page commands.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Updating Nodes and Menus, Next: Info Formatting, Prev: Showing the Structure, Up: Texinfo Mode 2.5 Updating Nodes and Menus ============================ Texinfo mode provides commands for automatically creating or updating menus and node pointers. The commands are called "update" commands because their most frequent use is for updating a Texinfo file after you have worked on it; but you can use them to insert the 'Next', 'Previous', and 'Up' pointers into an '@node' line that has none and to create menus in a file that has none. If you do not use any updating commands, you need to write menus and node pointers by hand, which is a tedious task. * Menu: * Updating Commands:: Five major updating commands. * Updating Requirements:: How to structure a Texinfo file for using the updating command. * Other Updating Commands:: How to indent descriptions, insert missing nodes lines, and update nodes in sequence.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Updating Commands, Next: Updating Requirements, Up: Updating Nodes and Menus 2.5.1 The Updating Commands --------------------------- You can use the updating commands to: * insert or update the 'Next', 'Previous', and 'Up' pointers of a node, * insert or update the menu for a section, and * create a master menu for a Texinfo source file. You can also use the commands to update all the nodes and menus in a region or in a whole Texinfo file. The updating commands work only with conventional Texinfo files, which are structured hierarchically like books. In such files, a structuring command line must follow closely after each '@node' line, except for the 'Top' '@node' line. (A "structuring command line" is a line beginning with '@chapter', '@section', or other similar command.) You can write the structuring command line on the line that follows immediately after an '@node' line or else on the line that follows after a single '@comment' line or a single '@ifinfo' line. You cannot interpose more than one line between the '@node' line and the structuring command line; and you may interpose only an '@comment' line or an '@ifinfo' line. Commands which work on a whole buffer require that the 'Top' node be followed by a node with an '@chapter' or equivalent-level command. The menu updating commands will not create a main or master menu for a Texinfo file that has only '@chapter'-level nodes! The menu updating commands only create menus _within_ nodes for lower level nodes. To create a menu of chapters, you must provide a 'Top' node. The menu updating commands remove menu entries that refer to other Info files since they do not refer to nodes within the current buffer. This is a deficiency. Rather than use menu entries, you can use cross references to refer to other Info files. None of the updating commands affect cross references. Texinfo mode has five updating commands that are used most often: two are for updating the node pointers or menu of a single node (or a region); two are for updating every node pointer and menu in a file; and one, the 'texinfo-master-menu' command, is for creating a master menu for a complete file, and optionally, for updating every node and menu in the whole Texinfo file. The 'texinfo-master-menu' command is the primary command: 'C-c C-u m' 'M-x texinfo-master-menu' Create or update a master menu that includes all the other menus (incorporating the descriptions from pre-existing menus, if any). With an argument (prefix argument, 'C-u,' if interactive), first create or update all the nodes and all the regular menus in the buffer before constructing the master menu. (*Note The Top Node and Master Menu: The Top Node, for more about a master menu.) For 'texinfo-master-menu' to work, the Texinfo file must have a 'Top' node and at least one subsequent node. After extensively editing a Texinfo file, you can type the following: C-u M-x texinfo-master-menu or C-u C-c C-u m This updates all the nodes and menus completely and all at once. The other major updating commands do smaller jobs and are designed for the person who updates nodes and menus as he or she writes a Texinfo file. The commands are: 'C-c C-u C-n' 'M-x texinfo-update-node' Insert the 'Next', 'Previous', and 'Up' pointers for the node that point is within (i.e., for the '@node' line preceding point). If the '@node' line has pre-existing 'Next', 'Previous', or 'Up' pointers in it, the old pointers are removed and new ones inserted. With an argument (prefix argument, 'C-u', if interactive), this command updates all '@node' lines in the region (which is the text between point and mark). 'C-c C-u C-m' 'M-x texinfo-make-menu' Create or update the menu in the node that point is within. With an argument ('C-u' as prefix argument, if interactive), the command makes or updates menus for the nodes which are either within or a part of the region. Whenever 'texinfo-make-menu' updates an existing menu, the descriptions from that menu are incorporated into the new menu. This is done by copying descriptions from the existing menu to the entries in the new menu that have the same node names. If the node names are different, the descriptions are not copied to the new menu. 'C-c C-u C-e' 'M-x texinfo-every-node-update' Insert or update the 'Next', 'Previous', and 'Up' pointers for every node in the buffer. 'C-c C-u C-a' 'M-x texinfo-all-menus-update' Create or update all the menus in the buffer. With an argument ('C-u' as prefix argument, if interactive), first insert or update all the node pointers before working on the menus. If a master menu exists, the 'texinfo-all-menus-update' command updates it; but the command does not create a new master menu if none already exists. (Use the 'texinfo-master-menu' command for that.) When working on a document that does not merit a master menu, you can type the following: C-u C-c C-u C-a or C-u M-x texinfo-all-menus-update This updates all the nodes and menus. The 'texinfo-column-for-description' variable specifies the column to which menu descriptions are indented. By default, the value is 32 although it can be useful to reduce it to as low as 24. You can set the variable via customization (*note (emacs)Customization::) or with the 'M-x set-variable' command (*note Examining and Setting Variables: (emacs)Examining.). Also, the 'texinfo-indent-menu-description' command may be used to indent existing menu descriptions to a specified column. Finally, if you wish, you can use the 'texinfo-insert-node-lines' command to insert missing '@node' lines into a file. (*Note Other Updating Commands::, for more information.)  File: texinfo.info, Node: Updating Requirements, Next: Other Updating Commands, Prev: Updating Commands, Up: Updating Nodes and Menus 2.5.2 Updating Requirements --------------------------- To use the updating commands, you must organize the Texinfo file hierarchically with chapters, sections, subsections, and the like. When you construct the hierarchy of the manual, do not 'jump down' more than one level at a time: you can follow the 'Top' node with a chapter, but not with a section; you can follow a chapter with a section, but not with a subsection. However, you may 'jump up' any number of levels at one time--for example, from a subsection to a chapter. Each '@node' line, with the exception of the line for the 'Top' node, must be followed by a line with a structuring command such as '@chapter', '@section', or '@unnumberedsubsec'. Each '@node' line/structuring-command line combination must look either like this: @node Comments, Minimum, Conventions, Overview @comment node-name, next, previous, up @section Comments or like this (without the '@comment' line): @node Comments, Minimum, Conventions, Overview @section Comments or like this (without the explicit node pointers): @node Comments @section Comments In this example, 'Comments' is the name of both the node and the section. The next node is called 'Minimum' and the previous node is called 'Conventions'. The 'Comments' section is within the 'Overview' node, which is specified by the 'Up' pointer. (Instead of an '@comment' line, you may also write an '@ifinfo' line.) If a file has a 'Top' node, it must be called 'top' or 'Top' and be the first node in the file. The menu updating commands create a menu of sections within a chapter, a menu of subsections within a section, and so on. This means that you must have a 'Top' node if you want a menu of chapters. Incidentally, the 'makeinfo' command will create an Info file for a hierarchically organized Texinfo file that lacks 'Next', 'Previous' and 'Up' pointers. Thus, if you can be sure that your Texinfo file will be formatted with 'makeinfo', you have no need for the update node commands. (*Note Creating an Info File::, for more information about 'makeinfo'.) However, both 'makeinfo' and the 'texinfo-format-...' commands require that you insert menus in the file.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Other Updating Commands, Prev: Updating Requirements, Up: Updating Nodes and Menus 2.5.3 Other Updating Commands ----------------------------- In addition to the five major updating commands, Texinfo mode possesses several less frequently used updating commands: 'M-x texinfo-insert-node-lines' Insert '@node' lines before the '@chapter', '@section', and other sectioning commands wherever they are missing throughout a region in a Texinfo file. With an argument ('C-u' as prefix argument, if interactive), the command 'texinfo-insert-node-lines' not only inserts '@node' lines but also inserts the chapter or section titles as the names of the corresponding nodes. In addition, it inserts the titles as node names in pre-existing '@node' lines that lack names. Since node names should be more concise than section or chapter titles, you must manually edit node names so inserted. For example, the following marks a whole buffer as a region and inserts '@node' lines and titles throughout: C-x h C-u M-x texinfo-insert-node-lines This command inserts titles as node names in '@node' lines; the 'texinfo-start-menu-description' command (*note Inserting Frequently Used Commands: Inserting.) inserts titles as descriptions in menu entries, a different action. However, in both cases, you need to edit the inserted text. 'M-x texinfo-multiple-files-update' Update nodes and menus in a document built from several separate files. With 'C-u' as a prefix argument, create and insert a master menu in the outer file. With a numeric prefix argument, such as 'C-u 2', first update all the menus and all the 'Next', 'Previous', and 'Up' pointers of all the included files before creating and inserting a master menu in the outer file. The 'texinfo-multiple-files-update' command is described in the appendix on '@include' files. *Note texinfo-multiple-files-update::. 'M-x texinfo-indent-menu-description' Indent every description in the menu following point to the specified column. You can use this command to give yourself more space for descriptions. With an argument ('C-u' as prefix argument, if interactive), the 'texinfo-indent-menu-description' command indents every description in every menu in the region. However, this command does not indent the second and subsequent lines of a multi-line description. 'M-x texinfo-sequential-node-update' Insert the names of the nodes immediately following and preceding the current node as the 'Next' or 'Previous' pointers regardless of those nodes' hierarchical level. This means that the 'Next' node of a subsection may well be the next chapter. Sequentially ordered nodes are useful for novels and other documents that you read through sequentially. (However, in Info, the 'g *' command lets you look through the file sequentially, so sequentially ordered nodes are not strictly necessary.) With an argument (prefix argument, if interactive), the 'texinfo-sequential-node-update' command sequentially updates all the nodes in the region.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Info Formatting, Next: Printing, Prev: Updating Nodes and Menus, Up: Texinfo Mode 2.6 Formatting for Info ======================= Texinfo mode provides several commands for formatting part or all of a Texinfo file for Info. Often, when you are writing a document, you want to format only part of a file--that is, a region. You can use either the 'texinfo-format-region' or the 'makeinfo-region' command to format a region: 'C-c C-e C-r' 'M-x texinfo-format-region' 'C-c C-m C-r' 'M-x makeinfo-region' Format the current region for Info. You can use either the 'texinfo-format-buffer' or the 'makeinfo-buffer' command to format a whole buffer: 'C-c C-e C-b' 'M-x texinfo-format-buffer' 'C-c C-m C-b' 'M-x makeinfo-buffer' Format the current buffer for Info. For example, after writing a Texinfo file, you can type the following: C-u C-c C-u m or C-u M-x texinfo-master-menu This updates all the nodes and menus. Then type the following to create an Info file: C-c C-m C-b or M-x makeinfo-buffer For TeX or the Info formatting commands to work, the file _must_ include a line that has '@setfilename' in its header. *Note Creating an Info File::, for details about Info formatting.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Printing, Next: Texinfo Mode Summary, Prev: Info Formatting, Up: Texinfo Mode 2.7 Printing ============ Typesetting and printing a Texinfo file is a multi-step process in which you first create a file for printing (called a DVI file), and then print the file. Optionally, you may also create indices. To do this, you must run the 'texindex' command after first running the 'tex' typesetting command; and then you must run the 'tex' command again. Or else run the 'texi2dvi' command which automatically creates indices as needed (*note Format with texi2dvi::). Often, when you are writing a document, you want to typeset and print only part of a file to see what it will look like. You can use the 'texinfo-tex-region' and related commands for this purpose. Use the 'texinfo-tex-buffer' command to format all of a buffer. 'C-c C-t C-b' 'M-x texinfo-tex-buffer' Run 'texi2dvi' on the buffer. In addition to running TeX on the buffer, this command automatically creates or updates indices as needed. 'C-c C-t C-r' 'M-x texinfo-tex-region' Run TeX on the region. 'C-c C-t C-i' 'M-x texinfo-texindex' Run 'texindex' to sort the indices of a Texinfo file formatted with 'texinfo-tex-region'. The 'texinfo-tex-region' command does not run 'texindex' automatically; it only runs the 'tex' typesetting command. You must run the 'texinfo-tex-region' command a second time after sorting the raw index files with the 'texindex' command. (Usually, you do not format an index when you format a region, only when you format a buffer. Now that the 'texi2dvi' command exists, there is little or no need for this command.) 'C-c C-t C-p' 'M-x texinfo-tex-print' Print the file (or the part of the file) previously formatted with 'texinfo-tex-buffer' or 'texinfo-tex-region'. For 'texinfo-tex-region' or 'texinfo-tex-buffer' to work, the file _must_ start with a '\input texinfo' line and must include an '@settitle' line. The file must end with '@bye' on a line by itself. (When you use 'texinfo-tex-region', you must surround the '@settitle' line with start-of-header and end-of-header lines.) *Note Hardcopy::, for a description of the other TeX related commands, such as 'tex-show-print-queue'.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Texinfo Mode Summary, Prev: Printing, Up: Texinfo Mode 2.8 Texinfo Mode Summary ======================== In Texinfo mode, each set of commands has default keybindings that begin with the same keys. All the commands that are custom-created for Texinfo mode begin with 'C-c'. The keys are somewhat mnemonic. Insert Commands --------------- The insert commands are invoked by typing 'C-c' twice and then the first letter of the @-command to be inserted. (It might make more sense mnemonically to use 'C-c C-i', for 'custom insert', but 'C-c C-c' is quick to type.) C-c C-c c Insert '@code'. C-c C-c d Insert '@dfn'. C-c C-c e Insert '@end'. C-c C-c i Insert '@item'. C-c C-c n Insert '@node'. C-c C-c s Insert '@samp'. C-c C-c v Insert '@var'. C-c { Insert braces. C-c ] C-c } Move out of enclosing braces. C-c C-c C-d Insert a node's section title in the space for the description in a menu entry line. Show Structure -------------- The 'texinfo-show-structure' command is often used within a narrowed region. C-c C-s List all the headings. The Master Update Command ------------------------- The 'texinfo-master-menu' command creates a master menu; and can be used to update every node and menu in a file as well. C-c C-u m M-x texinfo-master-menu Create or update a master menu. C-u C-c C-u m With 'C-u' as a prefix argument, first create or update all nodes and regular menus, and then create a master menu. Update Pointers --------------- The update pointer commands are invoked by typing 'C-c C-u' and then either 'C-n' for 'texinfo-update-node' or 'C-e' for 'texinfo-every-node-update'. C-c C-u C-n Update a node. C-c C-u C-e Update every node in the buffer. Update Menus ------------ Invoke the update menu commands by typing 'C-c C-u' and then either 'C-m' for 'texinfo-make-menu' or 'C-a' for 'texinfo-all-menus-update'. To update both nodes and menus at the same time, precede 'C-c C-u C-a' with 'C-u'. C-c C-u C-m Make or update a menu. C-c C-u C-a Make or update all menus in a buffer. C-u C-c C-u C-a With 'C-u' as a prefix argument, first create or update all nodes and then create or update all menus. Format for Info --------------- The Info formatting commands that are written in Emacs Lisp are invoked by typing 'C-c C-e' and then either 'C-r' for a region or 'C-b' for the whole buffer. The Info formatting commands that are written in C and based on the 'makeinfo' program are invoked by typing 'C-c C-m' and then either 'C-r' for a region or 'C-b' for the whole buffer. Use the 'texinfo-format...' commands: C-c C-e C-r Format the region. C-c C-e C-b Format the buffer. Use 'makeinfo': C-c C-m C-r Format the region. C-c C-m C-b Format the buffer. C-c C-m C-l Recenter the 'makeinfo' output buffer. C-c C-m C-k Kill the 'makeinfo' formatting job. Typeset and Print ----------------- The TeX typesetting and printing commands are invoked by typing 'C-c C-t' and then another control command: 'C-r' for 'texinfo-tex-region', 'C-b' for 'texinfo-tex-buffer', and so on. C-c C-t C-r Run TeX on the region. C-c C-t C-b Run texi2dvi on the buffer. C-c C-t C-i Run texindex. C-c C-t C-p Print the DVI file. C-c C-t C-q Show the print queue. C-c C-t C-d Delete a job from the print queue. C-c C-t C-k Kill the current TeX formatting job. C-c C-t C-x Quit a currently stopped TeX formatting job. C-c C-t C-l Recenter the output buffer. Other Updating Commands ----------------------- The remaining updating commands do not have standard keybindings because they are rarely used. M-x texinfo-insert-node-lines Insert missing '@node' lines in region. With 'C-u' as a prefix argument, use section titles as node names. M-x texinfo-multiple-files-update Update a multi-file document. With 'C-u 2' as a prefix argument, create or update all nodes and menus in all included files first. M-x texinfo-indent-menu-description Indent descriptions. M-x texinfo-sequential-node-update Insert node pointers in strict sequence.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Beginning a File, Next: Ending a File, Prev: Texinfo Mode, Up: Top 3 Beginning a Texinfo File ************************** Certain pieces of information must be provided at the beginning of a Texinfo file, such as the name for the output file(s), the title of the document, and the Top node. A table of contents is also generally produced here. This chapter expands on the minimal complete Texinfo source file previously given (*note Six Parts::). It describes the numerous commands for handling the traditional frontmatter items in Texinfo. Straight text outside of any command before the Top node should be avoided. Such text is treated differently in the different output formats: at the time of writing, it is visible in TeX and HTML, by default not shown in Info readers, and so on. * Menu: * Sample Beginning:: A sample beginning for a Texinfo file. * Texinfo File Header:: The first lines. * Document Permissions:: Ensuring your manual is free. * Titlepage & Copyright Page:: Creating the title and copyright pages. * Contents:: How to create a table of contents. * The Top Node:: Creating the 'Top' node and master menu. * Global Document Commands:: Affecting formatting throughout.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Sample Beginning, Next: Texinfo File Header, Up: Beginning a File 3.1 Sample Texinfo File Beginning ================================= The following sample shows what is needed. The elements given here are explained in more detail in the following sections. Other commands are often included at the beginning of Texinfo files, but the ones here are the most critical. *Note GNU Sample Texts::, for the full texts to be used in GNU manuals. \input texinfo @c -*-texinfo-*- @c %**start of header @setfilename INFONAME.info @settitle NAME-OF-MANUAL VERSION @c %**end of header @copying This manual is for PROGRAM, version VERSION. Copyright @copyright{} YEARS COPYRIGHT-OWNER. @quotation Permission is granted to ... @end quotation @end copying @titlepage @title NAME-OF-MANUAL-WHEN-PRINTED @subtitle SUBTITLE-IF-ANY @subtitle SECOND-SUBTITLE @author AUTHOR @c The following two commands @c start the copyright page. @page @vskip 0pt plus 1filll @insertcopying Published by ... @end titlepage @c So the toc is printed at the start. @contents @ifnottex @node Top @top TITLE This manual is for PROGRAM, version VERSION. @end ifnottex @menu * First Chapter:: Getting started ... * Second Chapter:: ... ... * Copying:: Your rights and freedoms. @end menu @node First Chapter @chapter First Chapter @cindex first chapter @cindex chapter, first ...  File: texinfo.info, Node: Texinfo File Header, Next: Document Permissions, Prev: Sample Beginning, Up: Beginning a File 3.2 Texinfo File Header ======================= Texinfo files start with at least three lines that provide Texinfo translators with necessary information. These are the '\input texinfo' line, the '@settitle' line, and the '@setfilename' line. Also, if you want to format just part of the Texinfo file in Emacs, you must write the '@settitle' and '@setfilename' lines between start-of-header and end-of-header lines. These start- and end-of-header lines are optional, but they do no harm, so you might as well always include them. Any command that affects document formatting as a whole makes sense to include in the header. '@synindex' (*note @synindex::), for instance, is another command often included in the header. Thus, the beginning of a Texinfo file generally looks approximately like this: \input texinfo @c -*-texinfo-*- @c %**start of header @setfilename sample.info @settitle Sample Manual 1.0 @c %**end of header (*Note GNU Sample Texts::, for complete sample texts.) * Menu: * First Line:: The first line of a Texinfo file. * Start of Header:: Formatting a region requires this. * @setfilename:: Tell Info the name of the Info file. * @settitle:: Create a title for the printed work. * End of Header:: Formatting a region requires this.  File: texinfo.info, Node: First Line, Next: Start of Header, Up: Texinfo File Header 3.2.1 The First Line of a Texinfo File -------------------------------------- Every Texinfo file that is to be the top-level input to TeX must begin with a line that looks like this: \input texinfo @c -*-texinfo-*- This line serves two functions: 1. When the file is processed by TeX, the '\input texinfo' command tells TeX to load the macros needed for processing a Texinfo file. These are in a file called 'texinfo.tex', which should have been installed on your system along with either the TeX or Texinfo software. TeX uses the backslash, '\', to mark the beginning of a command, exactly as Texinfo uses '@'. The 'texinfo.tex' file causes the switch from '\' to '@'; before the switch occurs, TeX requires '\', which is why it appears at the beginning of the file. 2. When the file is edited in GNU Emacs, the '-*-texinfo-*-' mode specification tells Emacs to use Texinfo mode.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Start of Header, Next: @setfilename, Prev: First Line, Up: Texinfo File Header 3.2.2 Start of Header --------------------- A start-of-header line is a Texinfo comment that looks like this: @c %**start of header Write the start-of-header line on the second line of a Texinfo file. Follow the start-of-header line with '@setfilename' and '@settitle' lines and, optionally, with other commands that globally affect the document formatting, such as '@synindex' or '@footnotestyle'; and then by an end-of-header line (*note End of Header::). The start- and end-of-header lines allow you to format only part of a Texinfo file for Info or printing. *Note texinfo-format commands::. The odd string of characters, '%**', is to ensure that no other comment is accidentally taken for a start-of-header line. You can change it if you wish by setting the 'tex-start-of-header' and/or 'tex-end-of-header' Emacs variables. *Note Texinfo Mode Printing::.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @setfilename, Next: @settitle, Prev: Start of Header, Up: Texinfo File Header 3.2.3 '@setfilename': Set the Output File Name ---------------------------------------------- The first Texinfo command (that is, after the '\input texinfo') in a document is generally '@setfilename': @setfilename INFO-FILE-NAME This command is required for TeX, and very strongly recommended for 'makeinfo'. Write the '@setfilename' command at the beginning of a line and follow it on the same line by the Info file name. Do not write anything else on the line. When an '@setfilename' line is present, the Texinfo processors ignore everything written before the '@setfilename' line. This is why the very first line of the file (the '\input' line) does not show up in the output. The '@setfilename' line specifies the name of the output file to be generated. This name must be different from the name of the Texinfo file. There are two conventions for choosing the name: you can either remove the extension (such as '.texi') entirely from the input file name, or (recommended) replace it with the '.info' extension. Although an explicit '.info' extension is preferable, some operating systems cannot handle long file names. You can run into a problem even when the file name you specify is itself short enough. This occurs because the Info formatters split a long Info file into short indirect subfiles, and name them by appending '-1', '-2', ..., '-10', '-11', and so on, to the original file name. (*Note Tag and Split Files::.) The subfile name 'texinfo.info-10', for example, is too long for old systems with a 14-character limit on filenames; so the Info file name for this document is 'texinfo' rather than 'texinfo.info'. When 'makeinfo' is running on operating systems such as MS-DOS which impose severe limits on file names, it may remove some characters from the original file name to leave enough space for the subfile suffix, thus producing files named 'texin-10', 'gcc.i12', etc. When producing another output format, 'makeinfo' will replace any final extension with the output format-specific extension ('html' when generating HTML, for example), or add a dot followed by the extension ('.html' for HTML) if the given name has no extension. The '@setfilename' line produces no output when you typeset a manual with TeX, but it is nevertheless essential: it opens the index and other auxiliary files used by Texinfo, and also reads 'texinfo.cnf' if that file is present on your system (*note Preparing for TeX::). If there is no '@setfilename' line, 'makeinfo' uses the input file name to determine the output name: first, any of the extensions '.texi', '.tex', '.txi' or '.texinfo' is removed from the input file name; then, the output format specific extension is added--'.html' when generating HTML, '.info' when generating Info, etc. The '\input' line is still ignored in this processing, as well as leading blank lines. See also the '--output' option in *note Invoking texi2any::.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @settitle, Next: End of Header, Prev: @setfilename, Up: Texinfo File Header 3.2.4 '@settitle': Set the Document Title ----------------------------------------- A Texinfo file should contain a line that looks like this: @settitle TITLE Write the '@settitle' command at the beginning of a line and follow it on the same line by the title. Do not write anything else on the line. The '@settitle' command should precede everything that generates actual output. The best place for it is right after the '@setfilename' command (described in the previous section). This command tells TeX the title to use in a header or footer for double-sided output, in case such headings are output. For more on headings for TeX, see *note Heading Generation::. In the HTML file produced by 'makeinfo', TITLE serves as the document ''. It also becomes the default document description in the '<head>' part (*note @documentdescription::). When the title page is used in the output, the title in the '@settitle' command does not affect the title as it appears on the title page. Thus, the two do not need not to match exactly. A practice we recommend is to include the version or edition number of the manual in the '@settitle' title; on the title page, the version number generally appears as an '@subtitle' so it would be omitted from the '@title'. *Note @titlepage::.  File: texinfo.info, Node: End of Header, Prev: @settitle, Up: Texinfo File Header 3.2.5 End of Header ------------------- Follow the header lines with an end-of-header line, which is a Texinfo comment that looks like this: @c %**end of header *Note Start of Header::.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Document Permissions, Next: Titlepage & Copyright Page, Prev: Texinfo File Header, Up: Beginning a File 3.3 Document Permissions ======================== The copyright notice and copying permissions for a document need to appear in several places in the various Texinfo output formats. Therefore, Texinfo provides a command ('@copying') to declare this text once, and another command ('@insertcopying') to insert the text at appropriate points. This section is about the license of the Texinfo document. If the document is a software manual, the software is typically under a different license--for GNU and many other free software packages, software is usually released under the GNU GPL, and manuals are released under the GNU FDL. It is helpful to state the license of the software of the manual, but giving the complete text of the software license is not necessarily required. * Menu: * @copying:: Declare the document's copying permissions. * @insertcopying:: Where to insert the permissions.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @copying, Next: @insertcopying, Up: Document Permissions 3.3.1 '@copying': Declare Copying Permissions --------------------------------------------- The '@copying' command should be given very early in the document; the recommended location is right after the header material (*note Texinfo File Header::). It conventionally consists of a sentence or two about what the program is, identification of the documentation itself, the legal copyright line, and the copying permissions. Here is a skeletal example: @copying This manual is for PROGRAM (version VERSION, updated DATE), which ... Copyright @copyright{} YEARS COPYRIGHT-OWNER. @quotation Permission is granted to ... @end quotation @end copying The '@quotation' has no legal significance; it's there to improve readability in some contexts. The text of '@copying' is output as a comment at the beginning of Info, HTML, XML, and Docbook output files. It is _not_ output implicitly in plain text or TeX; it's up to you to use '@insertcopying' to emit the copying information. See the next section for details. The '@copyright{}' command generates a 'c' inside a circle when the output format supports this glyph (print and HTML always do, for instance). When the glyph is not supported in the output, it generates the three-character sequence '(C)'. The copyright notice itself has the following legally-prescribed form: Copyright (C) YEARS COPYRIGHT-OWNER. The word 'Copyright' must always be written in English, even if the document is otherwise written in another language. This is due to international law. The list of years should include all years in which a version was completed (even if it was released in a subsequent year). It is simplest for each year to be written out individually and in full, separated by commas. The copyright owner (or owners) is whoever holds legal copyright on the work. In the case of works assigned to the FSF, the owner is 'Free Software Foundation, Inc.'. The copyright 'line' may actually be split across multiple lines, both in the source document and in the output. This often happens for documents with a long history, having many different years of publication. If you do use several lines, do not indent any of them (or anything else in the '@copying' block) in the source file. *Note (maintain)Copyright Notices::, for additional information. *Note GNU Sample Texts::, for the full text to be used in GNU manuals. *Note GNU Free Documentation License::, for the license itself under which GNU and other free manuals are distributed.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @insertcopying, Prev: @copying, Up: Document Permissions 3.3.2 '@insertcopying': Include Permissions Text ------------------------------------------------ The '@insertcopying' command is simply written on a line by itself, like this: @insertcopying This inserts the text previously defined by '@copying'. To meet legal requirements, it must be used on the copyright page in the printed manual (*note Copyright::). The '@copying' command itself causes the permissions text to appear in an Info file _before_ the first node. The text is also copied into the beginning of each split Info output file, as is legally necessary. This location implies a human reading the manual using Info does _not_ see this text (except when using the advanced Info command 'g *'), but this does not matter for legal purposes, because the text is present. Similarly, the '@copying' text is automatically included at the beginning of each HTML output file, as an HTML comment. Again, this text is not visible (unless the reader views the HTML source). The permissions text defined by '@copying' also appears automatically at the beginning of the XML and Docbook output files.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Titlepage & Copyright Page, Next: Contents, Prev: Document Permissions, Up: Beginning a File 3.4 Title and Copyright Pages ============================= In hard copy output, the manual's name and author are usually printed on a title page. Copyright information is usually printed on the back of the title page. The title and copyright pages appear in printed manuals, but not in most other output formats. Because of this, it is possible to use several slightly obscure typesetting commands that are not to be used in the main text. In addition, this part of the beginning of a Texinfo file contains the text of the copying permissions that appears in the printed manual. * Menu: * @titlepage:: Create a title for the printed document. * @titlefont @center @sp:: The '@titlefont', '@center', and '@sp' commands. * @title @subtitle @author:: The '@title', '@subtitle', and '@author' commands. * Copyright:: How to write the copyright notice and include copying permissions. * Heading Generation:: Turn on page headings after the title and copyright pages.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @titlepage, Next: @titlefont @center @sp, Up: Titlepage & Copyright Page 3.4.1 '@titlepage' ------------------ Start the material for the title page and following copyright page with '@titlepage' on a line by itself and end it with '@end titlepage' on a line by itself. The '@end titlepage' command starts a new page and turns on page numbering (*note Heading Generation::). All the material that you want to appear on unnumbered pages should be put between the '@titlepage' and '@end titlepage' commands. You can force the table of contents to appear there with the '@setcontentsaftertitlepage' command (*note Contents::). By using the '@page' command you can force a page break within the region delineated by the '@titlepage' and '@end titlepage' commands and thereby create more than one unnumbered page. This is how the copyright page is produced. (The '@titlepage' command might perhaps have been better named the '@titleandadditionalpages' command, but that would have been rather long!) When you write a manual about a computer program, you should write the version of the program to which the manual applies on the title page. If the manual changes more frequently than the program or is independent of it, you should also include an edition number(1) for the manual. This helps readers keep track of which manual is for which version of the program. (The 'Top' node should also contain this information; see *note The Top Node::.) Texinfo provides two main methods for creating a title page. One method uses the '@titlefont', '@sp', and '@center' commands to generate a title page in which the words on the page are centered. The second method uses the '@title', '@subtitle', and '@author' commands to create a title page with black rules under the title and author lines and the subtitle text set flush to the right hand side of the page. With this method, you do not specify any of the actual formatting of the title page. You specify the text you want, and Texinfo does the formatting. You may use either method, or you may combine them; see the examples in the sections below. For sufficiently simple documents, and for the bastard title page in traditional book frontmatter, Texinfo also provides a command '@shorttitlepage' which takes the rest of the line as the title. The argument is typeset on a page by itself and followed by a blank page. ---------- Footnotes ---------- (1) We have found that it is helpful to refer to versions of independent manuals as 'editions' and versions of programs as 'versions'; otherwise, we find we are liable to confuse each other in conversation by referring to both the documentation and the software with the same words.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @titlefont @center @sp, Next: @title @subtitle @author, Prev: @titlepage, Up: Titlepage & Copyright Page 3.4.2 '@titlefont', '@center', and '@sp' ---------------------------------------- You can use the '@titlefont', '@sp', and '@center' commands to create a title page for a printed document. (This is the first of the two methods for creating a title page in Texinfo.) Use the '@titlefont' command to select a large font suitable for the title itself. You can use '@titlefont' more than once if you have an especially long title. For HTML output, each '@titlefont' command produces an '<h1>' heading, but the HTML document '<title>' is not affected. For that, you must put an '@settitle' command before the '@titlefont' command (*note @settitle::). For example: @titlefont{Texinfo} Use the '@center' command at the beginning of a line to center the remaining text on that line. Thus, @center @titlefont{Texinfo} centers the title, which in this example is "Texinfo" printed in the title font. Use the '@sp' command to insert vertical space. For example: @sp 2 This inserts two blank lines on the printed page. (*Note @sp::, for more information about the '@sp' command.) A template for this method looks like this: @titlepage @sp 10 @center @titlefont{NAME-OF-MANUAL-WHEN-PRINTED} @sp 2 @center SUBTITLE-IF-ANY @sp 2 @center AUTHOR ... @end titlepage The spacing of the example fits an 8.5 by 11 inch manual. You can in fact use these commands anywhere, not just on a title page, but since they are not logical markup commands, we don't recommend them.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @title @subtitle @author, Next: Copyright, Prev: @titlefont @center @sp, Up: Titlepage & Copyright Page 3.4.3 '@title', '@subtitle', and '@author' ------------------------------------------ You can use the '@title', '@subtitle', and '@author' commands to create a title page in which the vertical and horizontal spacing is done for you automatically. This contrasts with the method described in the previous section, in which the '@sp' command is needed to adjust vertical spacing. Write the '@title', '@subtitle', or '@author' commands at the beginning of a line followed by the title, subtitle, or author. The '@author' command may be used for a quotation in an '@quotation' block (*note @quotation::); except for that, it is an error to use any of these commands outside of '@titlepage'. The '@title' command produces a line in which the title is set flush to the left-hand side of the page in a larger than normal font. The title is underlined with a black rule. The title must be given on a single line in the source file; it will be broken into multiple lines of output is needed. For long titles, the '@*' command may be used to specify the line breaks in long titles if the automatic breaks do not suit. Such explicit line breaks are generally reflected in all output formats; if you only want to specify them for the printed output, use a conditional (*note Conditionals::). For example: @title This Long Title@inlinefmt{tex,@*} Is Broken in @TeX{} The '@subtitle' command sets subtitles in a normal-sized font flush to the right-hand side of the page. The '@author' command sets the names of the author or authors in a middle-sized font flush to the left-hand side of the page on a line near the bottom of the title page. The names are followed by a black rule that is thinner than the rule that underlines the title. There are two ways to use the '@author' command: you can write the name or names on the remaining part of the line that starts with an '@author' command: @author by Jane Smith and John Doe or you can write the names one above each other by using multiple '@author' commands: @author Jane Smith @author John Doe A template for this method looks like this: @titlepage @title NAME-OF-MANUAL-WHEN-PRINTED @subtitle SUBTITLE-IF-ANY @subtitle SECOND-SUBTITLE @author AUTHOR @page ... @end titlepage  File: texinfo.info, Node: Copyright, Next: Heading Generation, Prev: @title @subtitle @author, Up: Titlepage & Copyright Page 3.4.4 Copyright Page -------------------- By international treaty, the copyright notice for a book must be either on the title page or on the back of the title page. When the copyright notice is on the back of the title page, that page is customarily not numbered. Therefore, in Texinfo, the information on the copyright page should be within '@titlepage' and '@end titlepage' commands. Use the '@page' command to cause a page break. To push the copyright notice and the other text on the copyright page towards the bottom of the page, use the following incantation after '@page': @vskip 0pt plus 1filll The '@vskip' command inserts whitespace in the TeX output; it is ignored in all other output formats. The '0pt plus 1filll' means to put in zero points of mandatory whitespace, and as much optional whitespace as needed to push the following text to the bottom of the page. Note the use of three 'l's in the word 'filll'; this is correct. To insert the copyright text itself, write '@insertcopying' next (*note Document Permissions::): @insertcopying Follow the copying text by the publisher, ISBN numbers, cover art credits, and other such information. Here is an example putting all this together: @titlepage ... @page @vskip 0pt plus 1filll @insertcopying Published by ... Cover art by ... @end titlepage We have one more special case to consider: for plain text output, you must insert the copyright information explicitly if you want it to appear. For instance, you could have the following after the copyright page: @ifplaintext @insertcopying @end ifplaintext You could include other title-like information for the plain text output in the same place.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Heading Generation, Prev: Copyright, Up: Titlepage & Copyright Page 3.4.5 Heading Generation ------------------------ Like all '@end' commands (*note Quotations and Examples::), the '@end titlepage' command must be written at the beginning of a line by itself, with only one space between the '@end' and the 'titlepage'. It not only marks the end of the title and copyright pages, but also causes TeX to start generating page headings and page numbers. Texinfo has two standard page heading formats, one for documents printed on one side of each sheet of paper (single-sided printing), and the other for documents printed on both sides of each sheet (double-sided printing). In full generality, you can control the headings in different ways: * The conventional way is to write an '@setchapternewpage' command before the title page commands, if required, and then have the '@end titlepage' command start generating page headings in the manner desired. Most documents are formatted with the standard single-sided or double-sided headings, (sometimes) using '@setchapternewpage odd' for double-sided printing and (almost always) no '@setchapternewpage' command for single-sided printing (*note @setchapternewpage::). * Alternatively, you can use the '@headings' command to prevent page headings from being generated or to start them for either single or double-sided printing. Write an '@headings' command immediately after the '@end titlepage' command. To turn off headings, write '@headings off'. *Note @headings::. * Or, you may specify your own page heading and footing format. *Note Headings::.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Contents, Next: The Top Node, Prev: Titlepage & Copyright Page, Up: Beginning a File 3.5 Generating a Table of Contents ================================== The '@chapter', '@section', and other structuring commands (*note Chapter Structuring::) supply the information to make up a table of contents, but they do not cause an actual table to appear in the manual. To do this, you must use the '@contents' and/or '@summarycontents' command(s). '@contents' Generates a table of contents in a printed manual, including all chapters, sections, subsections, etc., as well as appendices and unnumbered chapters. Headings generated by '@majorheading', '@chapheading', and the other '@...heading' commands do not appear in the table of contents (*note Structuring Command Types::). '@shortcontents' '@summarycontents' ('@summarycontents' is a synonym for '@shortcontents'.) Generates a short or summary table of contents that lists only the chapters, appendices, and unnumbered chapters. Sections, subsections and subsubsections are omitted. Only a long manual needs a short table of contents in addition to the full table of contents. Both contents commands should be written on a line by themselves, and placed near the beginning of the file, after the '@end titlepage' (*note @titlepage::), before any sectioning command. The contents commands automatically generate a chapter-like heading at the top of the first table of contents page, so don't include any sectioning command such as '@unnumbered' before them. Since an Info file uses menus instead of tables of contents, the Info formatting commands ignore the contents commands. But the contents are included in plain text output (generated by 'makeinfo --plaintext') and in other output formats, such as HTML. When 'makeinfo' writes a short table of contents while producing HTML output, the links in the short table of contents point to corresponding entries in the full table of contents rather than the text of the document. The links in the full table of contents point to the main text of the document. In the past, the contents commands were sometimes placed at the end of the file, after any indices and just before the '@bye', but we no longer recommend this. However, since many existing Texinfo documents still do have the '@contents' at the end of the manual, if you are a user printing a manual, you may wish to force the contents to be printed after the title page. You can do this by specifying '@setcontentsaftertitlepage' and/or '@setshortcontentsaftertitlepage'. The first prints only the main contents after the '@end titlepage'; the second prints both the short contents and the main contents. In either case, any subsequent '@contents' or '@shortcontents' is ignored. You need to include the '@set...contentsaftertitlepage' commands early in the document (just after '@setfilename', for example). We recommend using 'texi2dvi' (*note Format with texi2dvi::) to specify this without altering the source file at all. For example: texi2dvi --texinfo=@setcontentsaftertitlepage foo.texi An alternative invocation, using 'texi2any': texi2any --dvi --Xopt --texinfo=@setcontentsaftertitlepage foo.texi  File: texinfo.info, Node: The Top Node, Next: Global Document Commands, Prev: Contents, Up: Beginning a File 3.6 The 'Top' Node and Master Menu ================================== The 'Top' node is the node in which a reader enters an Info manual. As such, it should begin with a brief description of the manual (including the version number), and end with a master menu for the whole manual. Of course you should include any other general information you feel a reader would find helpful. It is conventional and desirable to write an '@top' sectioning command line containing the title of the document immediately after the '@node Top' line (*note @top Command::). The contents of the 'Top' node should appear only in the online output; none of it should appear in printed output, so enclose it between '@ifnottex' and '@end ifnottex' commands. (TeX does not print either an '@node' line or a menu; they appear only in Info; strictly speaking, you are not required to enclose these parts between '@ifnottex' and '@end ifnottex', but it is simplest to do so. *Note Conditionally Visible Text: Conditionals.) * Menu: * Top Node Example:: * Master Menu Parts::  File: texinfo.info, Node: Top Node Example, Next: Master Menu Parts, Up: The Top Node 3.6.1 Top Node Example ---------------------- Here is an example of a Top node. @ifnottex @node Top @top Sample Title This is the text of the top node. @end ifnottex Additional general information. @menu * First Chapter:: * Second Chapter:: ... * Index:: @end menu  File: texinfo.info, Node: Master Menu Parts, Prev: Top Node Example, Up: The Top Node 3.6.2 Parts of a Master Menu ---------------------------- A "master menu" is the main menu. It is customary to include a detailed menu listing all the nodes in the document in this menu. Like any other menu, a master menu is enclosed in '@menu' and '@end menu' and does not appear in the printed output. Generally, a master menu is divided into parts. * The first part contains the major nodes in the Texinfo file: the nodes for the chapters, chapter-like sections, and the appendices. * The second part contains nodes for the indices. * The third and subsequent parts contain a listing of the other, lower-level nodes, often ordered by chapter. This way, rather than go through an intermediary menu, an inquirer can go directly to a particular node when searching for specific information. These menu items are not required; add them if you think they are a convenience. If you do use them, put '@detailmenu' before the first one, and '@end detailmenu' after the last; otherwise, 'makeinfo' will get confused. Each section in the menu can be introduced by a descriptive line. So long as the line does not begin with an asterisk, it will not be treated as a menu entry. (*Note Writing a Menu::, for more information.) For example, the master menu for this manual looks like the following (but has many more entries): @menu * Copying Conditions:: Your rights. * Overview:: Texinfo in brief. ... * Command and Variable Index:: * General Index:: @detailmenu --- The Detailed Node Listing --- Overview of Texinfo * Reporting Bugs:: ... ... Beginning a Texinfo File * Sample Beginning:: ... ... @end detailmenu @end menu  File: texinfo.info, Node: Global Document Commands, Prev: The Top Node, Up: Beginning a File 3.7 Global Document Commands ============================ Besides the basic commands mentioned in the previous sections, here are additional commands which affect the document as a whole. They are generally all given before the Top node, if they are given at all. * Menu: * @documentdescription:: Document summary for the HTML output. * @setchapternewpage:: Start chapters on right-hand pages. * @headings:: An option for turning headings on and off and double or single sided printing. * @paragraphindent:: Specify paragraph indentation. * @firstparagraphindent:: Suppressing first paragraph indentation. * @exampleindent:: Specify environment indentation.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @documentdescription, Next: @setchapternewpage, Up: Global Document Commands 3.7.1 '@documentdescription': Summary Text ------------------------------------------ When producing HTML output for a document, 'makeinfo' writes a '<meta>' element in the '<head>' to give some idea of the content of the document. By default, this "description" is the title of the document, taken from the '@settitle' command (*note @settitle::). To change this, use the '@documentdescription' environment, as in: @documentdescription descriptive text. @end documentdescription This will produce the following output in the '<head>' of the HTML: <meta name=description content="descriptive text."> '@documentdescription' must be specified before the first node of the document.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @setchapternewpage, Next: @headings, Prev: @documentdescription, Up: Global Document Commands 3.7.2 '@setchapternewpage': Blank Pages Before Chapters ------------------------------------------------------- In an officially bound book, text is usually printed on both sides of the paper, chapters start on right-hand pages, and right-hand pages have odd numbers. But in short reports, text often is printed only on one side of the paper. Also in short reports, chapters sometimes do not start on new pages, but are printed on the same page as the end of the preceding chapter, after a small amount of vertical whitespace. You can use the '@setchapternewpage' command with various arguments to specify how TeX should start chapters and whether it should format headers for printing on one or both sides of the paper (single-sided or double-sided printing). Write the '@setchapternewpage' command at the beginning of a line followed by its argument. For example, you would write the following to cause each chapter to start on a fresh odd-numbered page: @setchapternewpage odd You can specify one of three alternatives with the '@setchapternewpage' command: '@setchapternewpage off' Cause TeX to typeset a new chapter on the same page as the last chapter, after skipping some vertical whitespace. Also, cause TeX to format page headers for single-sided printing. '@setchapternewpage on' Cause TeX to start new chapters on new pages and to format page headers for single-sided printing. This is the form most often used for short reports or personal printing. This is the default. '@setchapternewpage odd' Cause TeX to start new chapters on new, odd-numbered pages (right-handed pages) and to typeset for double-sided printing. This is the form most often used for books and manuals. Texinfo does not have an '@setchapternewpage even' command, because there is no printing tradition of starting chapters or books on an even-numbered page. If you don't like the default headers that '@setchapternewpage' sets, you can explicit control them with the '@headings' command. *Note @headings::. At the beginning of a manual or book, pages are not numbered--for example, the title and copyright pages of a book are not numbered. By convention, table of contents and frontmatter pages are numbered with roman numerals and not in sequence with the rest of the document. The '@setchapternewpage' has no effect in output formats that do not have pages, such as Info and HTML. We recommend not including any '@setchapternewpage' command in your document source at all, since such desired pagination is not intrinsic to the document. For a particular hard copy run, if you don't want the default output (no blank pages, same headers on all pages) use the '--texinfo' option to 'texi2dvi' to specify the output you want.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @headings, Next: @paragraphindent, Prev: @setchapternewpage, Up: Global Document Commands 3.7.3 The '@headings' Command ----------------------------- The '@headings' command is rarely used. It specifies what kind of page headings and footings to print on each page. Usually, this is controlled by the '@setchapternewpage' command. You need the '@headings' command only if the '@setchapternewpage' command does not do what you want, or if you want to turn off predefined page headings prior to defining your own. Write an '@headings' command immediately after the '@end titlepage' command. You can use '@headings' as follows: '@headings off' Turn off printing of page headings. '@headings single' Turn on page headings appropriate for single-sided printing. '@headings double' Turn on page headings appropriate for double-sided printing. '@headings singleafter' '@headings doubleafter' Turn on 'single' or 'double' headings, respectively, after the current page is output. '@headings on' Turn on page headings: 'single' if '@setchapternewpage on', 'double' otherwise. For example, suppose you write '@setchapternewpage off' before the '@titlepage' command to tell TeX to start a new chapter on the same page as the end of the last chapter. This command also causes TeX to typeset page headers for single-sided printing. To cause TeX to typeset for double sided printing, write '@headings double' after the '@end titlepage' command. You can stop TeX from generating any page headings at all by writing '@headings off' on a line of its own immediately after the line containing the '@end titlepage' command, like this: @end titlepage @headings off The '@headings off' command overrides the '@end titlepage' command, which would otherwise cause TeX to print page headings. You can also specify your own style of page heading and footing. *Note Page Headings: Headings, for more information.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @paragraphindent, Next: @firstparagraphindent, Prev: @headings, Up: Global Document Commands 3.7.4 '@paragraphindent': Controlling Paragraph Indentation ----------------------------------------------------------- The Texinfo processors may insert whitespace at the beginning of the first line of each paragraph, thereby indenting that paragraph. You can use the '@paragraphindent' command to specify this indentation. Write an '@paragraphindent' command at the beginning of a line followed by either 'asis' or a number: @paragraphindent INDENT The indentation is according to the value of INDENT: 'asis' Do not change the existing indentation (not implemented in TeX). 'none' 0 Omit all indentation. N Indent by N space characters in Info output, by N ems in TeX. The default value of INDENT is 3. '@paragraphindent' is ignored for HTML output. It is best to write the '@paragraphindent' command before the end-of-header line at the beginning of a Texinfo file, so the region formatting commands indent paragraphs as specified. *Note Start of Header::. A peculiarity of the 'texinfo-format-buffer' and 'texinfo-format-region' commands is that they do not indent (nor fill) paragraphs that contain '@w' or '@*' commands.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @firstparagraphindent, Next: @exampleindent, Prev: @paragraphindent, Up: Global Document Commands 3.7.5 '@firstparagraphindent': Indenting After Headings ------------------------------------------------------- As you can see in the present manual, the first paragraph in any section is not indented by default. Typographically, indentation is a paragraph separator, which means that it is unnecessary when a new section begins. This indentation is controlled with the '@firstparagraphindent' command: @firstparagraphindent WORD The first paragraph after a heading is indented according to the value of WORD: 'none' Prevents the first paragraph from being indented (default). This option is ignored by 'makeinfo' if '@paragraphindent asis' is in effect. 'insert' Include normal paragraph indentation. This respects the paragraph indentation set by an '@paragraphindent' command (*note @paragraphindent::). '@firstparagraphindent' is ignored for HTML and Docbook output. It is best to write the '@firstparagraphindent' command before the end-of-header line at the beginning of a Texinfo file, so the region formatting commands indent paragraphs as specified. *Note Start of Header::.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @exampleindent, Prev: @firstparagraphindent, Up: Global Document Commands 3.7.6 '@exampleindent': Environment Indenting --------------------------------------------- The Texinfo processors indent each line of '@example' and similar environments. You can use the '@exampleindent' command to specify this indentation. Write an '@exampleindent' command at the beginning of a line followed by either 'asis' or a number: @exampleindent INDENT The indentation is according to the value of INDENT: 'asis' Do not change the existing indentation (not implemented in TeX). 0 Omit all indentation. N Indent environments by N space characters in Info output, by N ems in TeX. The default value of INDENT is 5 spaces in Info, and 0.4in in TeX, which is somewhat less. (The reduction is to help TeX fit more characters onto physical lines.) It is best to write the '@exampleindent' command before the end-of-header line at the beginning of a Texinfo file, so the region formatting commands indent paragraphs as specified. *Note Start of Header::.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Ending a File, Next: Chapter Structuring, Prev: Beginning a File, Up: Top 4 Ending a Texinfo File *********************** The end of a Texinfo file should include commands to create indices, and the '@bye' command to mark the last line to be processed. For example: @node Index @unnumbered Index @printindex cp @bye * Menu: * Printing Indices & Menus:: How to print an index in hardcopy and generate index menus in Info. * File End:: How to mark the end of a file.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Printing Indices & Menus, Next: File End, Up: Ending a File 4.1 Printing Indices and Menus ============================== To print an index means to include it as part of a manual or Info file. This does not happen automatically just because you use '@cindex' or other index-entry generating commands in the Texinfo file; those just cause the raw data for the index to be accumulated. To generate an index, you must include the '@printindex' command at the place in the document where you want the index to appear. Also, as part of the process of creating a printed manual, you must run a program called 'texindex' (*note Hardcopy::) to sort the raw data to produce a sorted index file. The sorted index file is what is actually used to print the index. Texinfo offers six separate types of predefined index, which suffice in most cases. *Note Indices::, for information on this, as well defining your own new indices, combining indices, and, most importantly advice on writing the actual index entries. This section focuses on printing indices, which is done with the '@printindex' command. '@printindex' takes one argument, a two-letter index abbreviation. It reads the corresponding sorted index file (for printed output), and formats it appropriately into an index. The '@printindex' command does not generate a chapter heading for the index, since different manuals have different needs. Consequently, you should precede the '@printindex' command with a suitable section or chapter command (usually '@appendix' or '@unnumbered') to supply the chapter heading and put the index into the table of contents. Precede the chapter heading with an '@node' line as usual. For example: @node Variable Index @unnumbered Variable Index @printindex vr @node Concept Index @unnumbered Concept Index @printindex cp If you have more than one index, we recommend placing the concept index last. * In printed output, '@printindex' produces a traditional two-column index, with dot leaders between the index terms and page numbers. * In Info output, '@printindex' produces a special menu containing the line number of the entry, relative to the start of the node. Info readers can use this to go to the exact line of an entry, not just the containing node. (Older Info readers will just go to the node.) Here's an example: * First index entry: Top. (line 7) The actual number of spaces is variable, to right-justify the line number; it's been reduced here to make the line fit in the printed manual. * In plain text output, '@printindex' produces the same menu, but the line numbers are relative to the start of the file, since that's more convenient for that format. * In HTML output, '@printindex' produces links to the index entries. * In XML and Docbook output, it simply records the index to be printed.  File: texinfo.info, Node: File End, Prev: Printing Indices & Menus, Up: Ending a File 4.2 '@bye' File Ending ====================== An '@bye' command terminates Texinfo processing. None of the formatters process anything following '@bye'; any such text is completely ignored. The '@bye' command should be on a line by itself. Thus, if you wish, you may follow the '@bye' line with arbitrary notes. Also, you may follow the '@bye' line with a local variables list for Emacs, most typically a 'compile-command' (*note Using the Local Variables List: Compile-Command.).  File: texinfo.info, Node: Chapter Structuring, Next: Nodes, Prev: Ending a File, Up: Top 5 Chapter Structuring ********************* Texinfo's "chapter structuring" commands (could more generally be called "sectioning structuring", but that is awkward) divide a document into a hierarchy of chapters, sections, subsections, and subsubsections. These commands generate large headings in the text, like the one above. They also provide information for generating the table of contents (*note Generating a Table of Contents: Contents.), and for implicitly determining node pointers, as is recommended (*note makeinfo Pointer Creation::). The chapter structuring commands do not create a node structure, so normally you put an '@node' command immediately before each chapter structuring command (*note Nodes::). The only time you are likely to use the chapter structuring commands without also using nodes is if you are writing a document that contains no cross references and will only be printed, not transformed into Info, HTML, or other formats. * Menu: * Tree Structuring:: A manual is like an upside down tree ... * Structuring Command Types:: How to divide a manual into parts. * @chapter:: Chapter structuring. * @unnumbered @appendix:: * @majorheading @chapheading:: * @section:: * @unnumberedsec @appendixsec @heading:: * @subsection:: * @unnumberedsubsec @appendixsubsec @subheading:: * @subsubsection:: Commands for the lowest level sections. * @part:: Collections of chapters. * Raise/lower sections:: How to change commands' hierarchical level.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Tree Structuring, Next: Structuring Command Types, Up: Chapter Structuring 5.1 Tree Structure of Sections ============================== A Texinfo file is usually structured like a book with chapters, sections, subsections, and the like. This structure can be visualized as a tree (or rather as an upside-down tree) with the root at the top and the levels corresponding to chapters, sections, subsection, and subsubsections. Here is a diagram that shows a Texinfo file with three chapters, each with two sections. Top | ------------------------------------- | | | Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 | | | -------- -------- -------- | | | | | | Section Section Section Section Section Section 1.1 1.2 2.1 2.2 3.1 3.2 In a Texinfo file that has this structure, the beginning of Chapter 2 would normally (with implicitly-determined node pointers) be written like this: @node Chapter 2 @chapter Chapter 2 But for purposes of example, here is how it would be written with explicit node pointers: @node Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 1, Top @chapter Chapter 2 The chapter structuring commands are described in the sections that follow; the '@node' command is described in the following chapter (*note Nodes::).  File: texinfo.info, Node: Structuring Command Types, Next: @chapter, Prev: Tree Structuring, Up: Chapter Structuring 5.2 Structuring Command Types ============================= The chapter structuring commands fall into four groups or series, each of which contains structuring commands corresponding to the hierarchical levels of chapters, sections, subsections, and subsubsections. The four groups of commands are the '@chapter' series, the '@unnumbered' series, the '@appendix' series, and the '@heading' series. Each command produces a title with a different appearance in the body of the document. Some of the commands list their titles in the tables of contents, while others do not. Here are the details: * The '@chapter' and '@appendix' series of commands produce numbered or lettered entries both in the body of a document and in its table of contents. * The '@unnumbered' series of commands produce unnumbered entries both in the body of a document and in its table of contents. The '@top' command, which has a special use, is a member of this series (*note @top Command::). An '@unnumbered' section is a normal part of the document structure. * The '@heading' series of commands produce simple unnumbered headings that do not appear in a table of contents, are not associated with nodes, and cannot be cross-referenced. These heading commands never start a new page. When an '@setchapternewpage' command says to do so, the '@chapter', '@unnumbered', and '@appendix' commands start new pages in the printed manual; the '@heading' commands do not. *Note @setchapternewpage::. Here is a summary: No new page Numbered Unnumbered Lettered/numbered Unnumbered In contents In contents In contents Not in contents '@top' '@majorheading' '@chapter' '@unnumbered' '@appendix' '@chapheading' '@section' '@unnumberedsec' '@appendixsec' '@heading' '@subsection' '@unnumberedsubsec' '@appendixsubsec' '@subheading' '@subsubsection''@unnumberedsubsubsec''@appendixsubsubsec' '@subsubheading'  File: texinfo.info, Node: @chapter, Next: @unnumbered @appendix, Prev: Structuring Command Types, Up: Chapter Structuring 5.3 '@chapter': Chapter Structuring =================================== '@chapter' identifies a chapter in the document-the highest level of the normal document structuring hierarchy. Write the command at the beginning of a line and follow it on the same line by the title of the chapter. The chapter is numbered automatically, starting from 1. For example, the present chapter in this manual is entitled "'@chapter': Chapter Structuring"; the '@chapter' line looks like this: @chapter @code{@@chapter}: Chapter Structuring In TeX, the '@chapter' command produces a chapter heading in the document. In Info and plain text output, the '@chapter' command causes the title to appear on a line by itself, with a line of asterisks inserted underneath. So, the above example produces the following output: 5 Chapter Structuring ********************* In HTML, the '@chapter' command produces an '<h2>'-level header by default (controlled by the 'CHAPTER_HEADER_LEVEL' customization variable, *note Other Customization Variables::). In the XML and Docbook output, a '<chapter>' element is produced that includes all the following sections, up to the next chapter.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @unnumbered @appendix, Next: @majorheading @chapheading, Prev: @chapter, Up: Chapter Structuring 5.4 '@unnumbered', '@appendix': Chapters with Other Labeling ============================================================ Use the '@unnumbered' command to start a chapter-level element that appears without chapter numbers of any kind. Use the '@appendix' command to start an appendix that is labeled by letter ('A', 'B', ...) instead of by number; appendices are also at the chapter level of structuring. Write an '@appendix' or '@unnumbered' command at the beginning of a line and follow it on the same line by the title, just as with '@chapter'. Texinfo also provides a command '@centerchap', which is analogous to '@unnumbered', but centers its argument in the printed and HTML outputs. This kind of stylistic choice is not usually offered by Texinfo. It may be suitable for short documents. With '@unnumbered', if the name of the associated node is one of these English words (case-insensitive): Acknowledgements Colophon Dedication Preface then the Docbook output uses corresponding special tags ('<preface>', etc.) instead of the default '<chapter>'. The argument to '@unnumbered' itself can be anything, and is output as the following '<title>' text as usual.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @majorheading @chapheading, Next: @section, Prev: @unnumbered @appendix, Up: Chapter Structuring 5.5 '@majorheading', '@chapheading': Chapter-level Headings =========================================================== The '@majorheading' and '@chapheading' commands produce chapter-like headings in the body of a document. However, neither command produces an entry in the table of contents, and neither command causes TeX to start a new page in a printed manual. In TeX, an '@majorheading' command generates a larger vertical whitespace before the heading than an '@chapheading' command but is otherwise the same. In Info and plain text, the '@majorheading' and '@chapheading' commands produce the same output as '@chapter': the title is printed on a line by itself with a line of asterisks underneath. Similarly for HTML. The only difference is the lack of numbering and the lack of any association with nodes. *Note @chapter::.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @section, Next: @unnumberedsec @appendixsec @heading, Prev: @majorheading @chapheading, Up: Chapter Structuring 5.6 '@section': Sections Below Chapters ======================================= An '@section' command identifies a section within a chapter unit, whether created with '@chapter', '@unnumbered', or '@appendix', following the numbering scheme of the chapter-level command. Thus, within an '@chapter' chapter numbered '1', the sections are numbered '1.1', '1.2', etc.; within an '@appendix' "chapter" labeled 'A', the sections are numbered 'A.1', 'A.2', etc.; within an '@unnumbered' chapter, the section gets no number. The output is underlined with '=' in Info and plain text. To make a section, write the '@section' command at the beginning of a line and follow it on the same line by the section title. For example, @section This is a section might produce the following in Info: 5.7 This is a section ===================== Section titles are listed in the table of contents. The TeX, HTML, Docbook, and XML output is all analogous to the chapter-level output, just "one level down"; *note @chapter::.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @unnumberedsec @appendixsec @heading, Next: @subsection, Prev: @section, Up: Chapter Structuring 5.7 '@unnumberedsec', '@appendixsec', '@heading' ================================================ The '@unnumberedsec', '@appendixsec', and '@heading' commands are, respectively, the unnumbered, appendix-like, and heading-like equivalents of the '@section' command (see the previous section). '@unnumberedsec' and '@appendixsec' do not need to be used in ordinary circumstances, because '@section' may also be used within '@unnumbered' and '@appendix' chapters; again, see the previous section. '@unnumberedsec' The '@unnumberedsec' command may be used within an unnumbered chapter or within a regular chapter or appendix to produce an unnumbered section. '@appendixsec' '@appendixsection' '@appendixsection' is a longer spelling of the '@appendixsec' command; the two are synonymous. Conventionally, the '@appendixsec' or '@appendixsection' command is used only within appendices. '@heading' You may use the '@heading' command (almost) anywhere for a section-style heading that will not appear in the table of contents. The '@heading'-series commands can appear inside most environments, for example, though pathological and useless locations such as inside '@titlepage', as an argument to another command, etc., are not allowed.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @subsection, Next: @unnumberedsubsec @appendixsubsec @subheading, Prev: @unnumberedsec @appendixsec @heading, Up: Chapter Structuring 5.8 '@subsection': Subsections Below Sections ============================================= Subsections are to sections as sections are to chapters; *note @section::. In Info and plain text, subsection titles are underlined with '-'. For example, @subsection This is a subsection might produce 1.2.3 This is a subsection -------------------------- Subsection titles are listed in the table of contents. The TeX, HTML, Docbook, and XML output is all analogous to the chapter-level output, just "two levels down"; *note @chapter::.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @unnumberedsubsec @appendixsubsec @subheading, Next: @subsubsection, Prev: @subsection, Up: Chapter Structuring 5.9 The '@subsection'-like Commands =================================== The '@unnumberedsubsec', '@appendixsubsec', and '@subheading' commands are, respectively, the unnumbered, appendix-like, and heading-like equivalents of the '@subsection' command. (*Note @subsection::.) '@unnumberedsubsec' and '@appendixsubsec' do not need to be used in ordinary circumstances, because '@subsection' may also be used within sections of '@unnumbered' and '@appendix' chapters (*note @section::). An '@subheading' command produces a heading like that of a subsection except that it is not numbered and does not appear in the table of contents. Similarly, an '@unnumberedsubsec' command produces an unnumbered heading like that of a subsection and an '@appendixsubsec' command produces a subsection-like heading labeled with a letter and numbers; both of these commands produce headings that appear in the table of contents. In Info and plain text, the '@subsection'-like commands generate a title underlined with hyphens.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @subsubsection, Next: @part, Prev: @unnumberedsubsec @appendixsubsec @subheading, Up: Chapter Structuring 5.10 '@subsection' and Other Subsub Commands ============================================ The fourth and lowest level sectioning commands in Texinfo are the 'subsub' commands. They are: '@subsubsection' Subsubsections are to subsections as subsections are to sections. (*Note @subsection::.) Subsubsection titles appear in the table of contents. '@unnumberedsubsubsec' Unnumbered subsubsection titles appear in the table of contents, but lack numbers. Otherwise, unnumbered subsubsections are the same as subsubsections. '@appendixsubsubsec' Conventionally, appendix commands are used only for appendices and are lettered and numbered appropriately. They also appear in the table of contents. '@subsubheading' The '@subsubheading' command may be used anywhere that you want a small heading that will not appear in the table of contents. As with subsections, '@unnumberedsubsubsec' and '@appendixsubsubsec' do not need to be used in ordinary circumstances, because '@subsubsection' may also be used within subsections of '@unnumbered' and '@appendix' chapters (*note @section::). In Info, 'subsub' titles are underlined with periods. For example, @subsubsection This is a subsubsection might produce 1.2.3.4 This is a subsubsection ............................... The TeX, HTML, Docbook, and XML output is all analogous to the chapter-level output, just "three levels down"; *note @chapter::.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @part, Next: Raise/lower sections, Prev: @subsubsection, Up: Chapter Structuring 5.11 '@part': Groups of Chapters ================================ The final sectioning command is '@part', to mark a "part" of a manual, that is, a group of chapters or (rarely) appendices. This behaves quite differently from the other sectioning commands, to fit with the way such "parts" are conventionally used in books. No '@node' command is associated with '@part'. Just write the command on a line by itself, including the part title, at the place in the document you want to mark off as starting that part. For example: @part Part I:@* The beginning As can be inferred from this example, no automatic numbering or labeling of the '@part' text is done. The text is taken as-is. Because parts are not associated with nodes, no general text can follow the '@part' line. To produce the intended output, it must be followed by a chapter-level command (including its node). Thus, to continue the example: @part Part I:@* The beginning @node Introduction @chapter Introduction ... In the TeX output, the '@part' text is included in both the normal and short tables of contents (*note Contents::), without a page number (since that is the normal convention). In addition, a "part page" is output in the body of the document, with just the '@part' text. In the example above, the '@*' causes a line break on the part page (but is replaced with a space in the tables of contents). This part page is always forced to be on an odd (right-hand) page, regardless of the chapter pagination (*note @setchapternewpage::). In the HTML output, the '@part' text is similarly included in the tables of contents, and a heading is included in the main document text, as part of the following chapter or appendix node. In the XML and Docbook output, the '<part>' element includes all the following chapters, up to the next '<part>'. A '<part>' containing chapters is also closed at an appendix. In the Info and plain text output, '@part' has no effect. '@part' is ignored when raising or lowering sections (see next section). That is, it is never lowered and nothing can be raised to it.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Raise/lower sections, Prev: @part, Up: Chapter Structuring 5.12 Raise/lower Sections: '@raisesections' and '@lowersections' ================================================================ The '@raisesections' and '@lowersections' commands implicitly raise and lower the hierarchical level of following chapters, sections and the other sectioning commands (excluding parts). That is, the '@raisesections' command changes sections to chapters, subsections to sections, and so on. Conversely, the '@lowersections' command changes chapters to sections, sections to subsections, and so on. Thus, an '@lowersections' command cancels an '@raisesections' command, and vice versa. You can use '@lowersections' to include text written as an outer or standalone Texinfo file in another Texinfo file as an inner, included file (*note Include Files::). Typical usage looks like this: @lowersections @include somefile.texi @raisesections (Without the '@raisesections', all the subsequent sections in the main file would also be lowered.) If the included file being lowered has an '@top' node, you'll need to conditionalize its inclusion with a flag (*note @set @value::). Another difficulty can arise with documents that use the (recommended) feature of 'makeinfo' for implicitly determining node pointers. Since 'makeinfo' must assume a hierarchically organized document to determine the pointers, you cannot just arbitrarily sprinkle '@raisesections' and '@lowersections' commands throughout the document. The final result has to have menus that take the raising and lowering into account. So, as a practical matter, you generally only want to raise or lower large chunks, usually in external files as shown above. Repeated use of the commands continues to raise or lower the hierarchical level a step at a time. An attempt to raise above 'chapter' reproduces chapter commands; an attempt to lower below 'subsubsection' reproduces subsubsection commands. Also, lowered subsubsections and raised chapters will not work with 'makeinfo''s feature of implicitly determining node pointers, since the menu structure cannot be represented correctly. Write each '@raisesections' and '@lowersections' command on a line of its own.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Nodes, Next: Menus, Prev: Chapter Structuring, Up: Top 6 Nodes ******* "Nodes" are the primary segments of a Texinfo file. They do not in and of themselves impose a hierarchical or any other kind of structure on a file. Nodes contain "node pointers" that name other nodes, and can contain "menus" which are lists of nodes. In Info, the movement commands can carry you to a pointed-to node or to a node listed in a menu. Node pointers and menus provide structure for Info files just as chapters, sections, subsections, and the like provide structure for printed books. The two structures are theoretically distinct. In practice, however, the tree structure of printed books is essentially always used for the node and menu structure also, as this leads to a document which is easiest to follow. *Note Texinfo Document Structure::. Because node names are used in cross references, it is not desirable to casually change them once published. Such name changes invalidate references from other manuals, from mail archives, and so on. *Note HTML Xref Link Preservation::. * Menu: * @node:: Creating nodes, in detail. * makeinfo Pointer Creation:: Letting makeinfo determine node pointers. * @anchor:: Defining arbitrary cross reference targets. * Node Menu Illustration:: A diagram, and sample nodes and menus.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @node, Next: makeinfo Pointer Creation, Up: Nodes 6.1 The '@node' Command ======================= A "node" is a stretch of text that begins at an '@node' command and continues until the next '@node' command. The definition of node is different from that for chapter or section. A chapter may contain sections and a section may contain subsections, but a node cannot contain subnodes: the text of a node continues only until the next '@node' command in the file. A node usually contains only one chapter structuring command, immediately following the '@node' line. To specify a node, write an '@node' command at the beginning of a line, and follow it with up to four arguments, separated by commas, on the rest of the same line. The first argument is required; it is the name of this node (for details of node names, *note Node Line Requirements::). The subsequent arguments are optional--they are the names of the 'Next', 'Previous', and 'Up' pointers, in that order. We strongly recommend omitting them if your Texinfo document is hierarchically organized, as virtually all are (*note makeinfo Pointer Creation::). You may insert spaces before or after each name on the '@node' line if you wish; such spaces are ignored. Whether the node pointers are specified implicitly or explicitly, the Info and HTML output from 'makeinfo' for each node includes links to the 'Next', 'Previous', and 'Up' nodes. The HTML also uses the 'accesskey' attribute with the values 'n', 'p', and 'u' respectively. This allows people using web browsers to follow the navigation using (typically) 'M-LETTER', e.g., 'M-n' for the 'Next' node, from anywhere within the node. Usually, you write one of the chapter-structuring command lines immediately after an '@node' line--for example, an '@section' or '@subsection' line. *Note Structuring Command Types::. TeX uses both '@node' names and chapter-structuring names in the output for cross references. For this reason, you must write '@node' lines in a Texinfo file that you intend to format for printing, even if you do not intend to format it for Info; and you must include a chapter-structuring command after a node for it to be a valid cross reference target (to TeX). You can use '@anchor' (*note @anchor::) to make cross references to an arbitrary position in a document. Cross references, such as the one at the end of this sentence, are made with '@xref' and related commands; see *note Cross References::. * Menu: * Node Names:: How to choose node and pointer names. * Writing a Node:: How to write an '@node' line. * Node Line Requirements:: Keep names unique. * First Node:: How to write a 'Top' node. * @top Command:: How to use the '@top' command.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Node Names, Next: Writing a Node, Up: @node 6.1.1 Choosing Node and Pointer Names ------------------------------------- The name of a node identifies the node. For all the details of node names, *note Node Line Requirements::). Here are some suggestions for node names: * Try to pick node names that are informative but short. In the Info file, the file name, node name, and pointer names are all inserted on one line, which may run into the right edge of the window. (This does not cause a problem with Info, but is ugly.) * Try to pick node names that differ from each other near the beginnings of their names. This way, it is easy to use automatic name completion in Info. * Conventionally, node names are capitalized in the same way as section and chapter titles. In this manual, initial and significant words are capitalized; others are not. In other manuals, just initial words and proper nouns are capitalized. Either way is fine; we recommend just being consistent. The pointers from a given node enable you to reach other nodes and consist simply of the names of those nodes. The pointers are usually not specified explicitly, as 'makeinfo' can determine them (*note makeinfo Pointer Creation::). Normally, a node's 'Up' pointer contains the name of the node whose menu mentions that node. The node's 'Next' pointer contains the name of the node that follows the present node in that menu and its 'Previous' pointer contains the name of the node that precedes it in that menu. When a node's 'Previous' node is the same as its 'Up' node, both pointers name the same node. Usually, the first node of a Texinfo file is the 'Top' node, and its 'Up' pointer points to the 'dir' file, which contains the main menu for all of Info.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Writing a Node, Next: Node Line Requirements, Prev: Node Names, Up: @node 6.1.2 Writing an '@node' Line ----------------------------- The easiest and preferred way to write an '@node' line is to write '@node' at the beginning of a line and then the name of the node, like this: @node NODE-NAME If you are using GNU Emacs, you can use the update node commands provided by Texinfo mode to insert the names of the pointers; or (recommended), you can leave the pointers out of the Texinfo file and let 'makeinfo' insert node pointers into the Info file it creates. (*Note Texinfo Mode::, and *note makeinfo Pointer Creation::.) Alternatively, you can insert the 'Next', 'Previous', and 'Up' pointers yourself. If you do this, you may find it helpful to use the Texinfo mode keyboard command 'C-c C-c n'. This command inserts '@node' and a comment line listing the names of the pointers in their proper order. The comment line helps you keep track of which arguments are for which pointers. This comment line is especially useful if you are not familiar with Texinfo. The template for a fully-written-out node line with 'Next', 'Previous', and 'Up' pointers looks like this: @node NODE-NAME, NEXT, PREVIOUS, UP The NODE-NAME argument must be present, but the others are optional. If you wish to specify some but not others, just insert commas as needed, as in: '@node mynode,,,uppernode'. However, we recommend leaving off all the pointers and letting 'makeinfo' determine them, as described above. If you wish, you can ignore '@node' lines altogether in your first draft and then use the 'texinfo-insert-node-lines' command to create '@node' lines for you. However, we do not recommend this practice. It is better to name the node itself at the same time that you write a segment so you can easily make cross references. Useful cross references are an especially important feature of a good Texinfo manual. After you have inserted an '@node' line, you should immediately write an @-command for the chapter or section and insert its name. Next (and this is important!), put in several index entries. Usually, you will find at least two and often as many as four or five ways of referring to the node in the index. Use them all. This will make it much easier for people to find the node. Even when you explicitly specify all pointers, you cannot write the nodes in the Texinfo source file in an arbitrary order! Because formatters must process the file sequentially, irrespective of node pointers, you must write the nodes in the order you wish them to appear in the output. For Info format one can imagine that the order may not matter, but it matters for the other formats.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Node Line Requirements, Next: First Node, Prev: Writing a Node, Up: @node 6.1.3 '@node' Line Requirements ------------------------------- Names used with '@node' have several requirements: * All the node names in a single Texinfo file must be unique. This means, for example, that if you end every chapter with a summary, you must name each summary node differently. You cannot just call them all "Summary". You may, however, duplicate the titles of chapters, sections, and the like. Thus you can end each chapter with a section called "Summary", so long as the node names for those sections are all different. * The next/previous/up pointers on '@node' lines must be the names of nodes. (It's recommended to leave out these explicit node pointer names, which automatically avoids any problem here; *note makeinfo Pointer Creation::.) * Node names can contain @-commands. The output is generally the natural result of the command; for example, using '@TeX{}' in a node name results in the TeX logo being output, as it would be in normal text. Cross references should use '@TeX{}' just as the node name does. For Info and HTML output, especially, it is necessary to expand commands to some sequence of plain characters; for instance, '@TeX{}' expands to the three letters 'TeX' in the Info node name. However, cross references to the node should not take the "shortcut" of using 'TeX'; stick to the actual node name, commands and all. Some commands do not make sense in node names; for instance, environments (e.g., '@quotation'), commands that read a whole line as their argument (e.g., '@sp'), and plenty of others. For the complete list of commands that are allowed, and their expansion for HTML identifiers and file names, *note HTML Xref Command Expansion::. The expansions for Info are generally given with main the description of the command. Prior to the Texinfo 5 release in 2013, this feature was supported in an ad hoc way (the '--commands-in-node-names' option to 'makeinfo'). Now it is part of the language. * Unfortunately, you cannot reliably use periods, commas, or colons within a node name; these can confuse the Info reader. Also, a node name may not start with a left parenthesis preceding a right parenthesis, as in '(not)allowed', since this syntax is used to specify an external manual. (Perhaps these limitations will be removed some day.) 'makeinfo' warns about such problematic usage in node names, menu items, and cross references. If you don't want to see the warnings, you can set the customization variable 'INFO_SPECIAL_CHARS_WARNING' to '0' (*note Other Customization Variables::). Also, if you insist on using these characters in node names (accepting the resulting substandard Info output), in order not to confuse the Texinfo processors you must still escape those characters, by using either special insertions (*note Inserting a Comma::) or '@asis' (*note @asis::). For example: @node foo@asis{::}bar As an example of avoiding the special characters, the following is a section title in this manual: @section @code{@@unnumbered}, @code{@@appendix}: ... But the corresponding node name lacks the commas and the subtitle: @node @unnumbered @appendix * Case is significant in node names. * Spaces before and after names on the '@node' line are ignored. Multiple whitespace characters "inside" a name are collapsed to a single space. For example: @node foo bar @node foo bar, @node foo bar , @node foo bar, @node foo bar , all define the same node, namely 'foo bar'. In menu entries, this is the name that should be used: no leading or trailing spaces, and a single internal space. (For cross-references, the node name used in the Texinfo sources is automatically normalized in this way.)  File: texinfo.info, Node: First Node, Next: @top Command, Prev: Node Line Requirements, Up: @node 6.1.4 The First Node -------------------- The first node of a Texinfo file is the "Top" node, except in an included file (*note Include Files::). The Top node should contain a short summary, copying permissions, and a master menu. *Note The Top Node::, for more information on the Top node contents and examples. Here is a description of the node pointers to be used in the Top node: * The Top node (which must be named 'top' or 'Top') should have as its 'Up' node the name of a node in another file, where there is a menu that leads to this file. Specify the file name in parentheses. Usually, all Info files are available through a single virtual Info tree, constructed from multiple directories. In this case, use '(dir)' as the parent of the Top node; this specifies the top-level node in the 'dir' file, which contains the main menu for the Info system as a whole. (Each directory with Info files is intended to contain a file named 'dir'.) That's fine for Info, but for HTML output, one might well want the Up link from the Top node to go somewhere other than 'dir.html'. For example, for GNU the natural place would be <http://www.gnu.org/manual/> (a web page collecting links to most GNU manuals), better specified as just '/manual/' if the manual will be installed on 'www.gnu.org'. This can be specified with the 'TOP_NODE_UP_URL' customization variable (*note HTML Customization Variables::), as in $ makeinfo --html -c TOP_NODE_UP_URL=/manual/ ... All links to '(dir)' will be replaced by the given url. * The 'Prev' node of the Top node is usually either omitted or also set to '(dir)'. Either is fine. * The 'Next' node of the Top node should be the first chapter in your document. *Note Installing an Info File::, for more information about installing an Info file in the 'info' directory. It is usually best to leave the pointers off entirely and let the tools implicitly define them, with this simple result: @node Top  File: texinfo.info, Node: @top Command, Prev: First Node, Up: @node 6.1.5 The '@top' Sectioning Command ----------------------------------- The '@top' command is a special sectioning command that you should only use after an '@node Top' line at the beginning of a Texinfo file. The '@top' command tells the 'makeinfo' formatter which node is to be used as the root of the node tree (needed if your manual uses implicit node pointers). It produces the same sort of output as '@unnumbered' (*note @unnumbered @appendix::). The '@top' node is conventionally wrapped in an '@ifnottex' conditional so that it will not appear in TeX output (*note Conditionals::). Thus, in practice, a Top node usually looks like this: @ifnottex @node Top @top YOUR-MANUAL-TITLE VERY-HIGH-LEVEL-SUMMARY @end ifnottex '@top' is ignored when raising or lowering sections. That is, it is never lowered and nothing can be raised to it (*note Raise/lower sections::).  File: texinfo.info, Node: makeinfo Pointer Creation, Next: @anchor, Prev: @node, Up: Nodes 6.2 'makeinfo' Pointer Creation =============================== The 'makeinfo' program can automatically determine node pointers for a hierarchically organized document. This implicit node pointer creation feature in 'makeinfo' relieves you from the need to update menus and pointers manually or with Texinfo mode commands. (*Note Updating Nodes and Menus::.) We highly recommend taking advantage of this. To do so, write your '@node' lines with just the name of the node: @node My Node You do not need to write out the 'Next', 'Previous', and 'Up' pointers. Then, you must write a sectioning command, such as '@chapter' or '@section', on the line immediately following each truncated '@node' line (except that comment lines may intervene). This is where it normally goes. Also, you must write the name of each node (except for the 'Top' node) in a menu that is one or more hierarchical levels above the node's level. Finally, you must follow the 'Top' '@node' line with a line beginning with '@top' to mark the top-level node in the file. *Note @top Command::. If you use a detailed menu in your master menu (*note Master Menu Parts::), mark it with the '@detailmenu ... @end detailmenu' environment, or 'makeinfo' will get confused, typically about the last and/or first node in the document. In most cases, you will want to take advantage of this feature and not redundantly specify node pointers that the programs can determine. However, Texinfo documents are not required to be organized hierarchically or in fact to contain sectioning commands at all (for example, if you never intend the document to be printed), so node pointers may still be specified explicitly, in full generality.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @anchor, Next: Node Menu Illustration, Prev: makeinfo Pointer Creation, Up: Nodes 6.3 '@anchor': Defining Arbitrary Cross Reference Targets ========================================================= An "anchor" is a position in your document, labeled so that cross references can refer to it, just as they can to nodes. You create an anchor with the '@anchor' command, and give the label as a normal brace-delimited argument. For example: This marks the @anchor{x-spot}spot. ... @xref{x-spot,,the spot}. produces: This marks the spot. ... See [the spot], page 1. As you can see, the '@anchor' command itself produces no output. This example defines an anchor 'x-spot' just before the word 'spot'. You can refer to it later with an '@xref' or other cross reference command, as shown (*note Cross References::). It is best to put '@anchor' commands just before the position you wish to refer to; that way, the reader's eye is led on to the correct text when they jump to the anchor. You can put the '@anchor' command on a line by itself if that helps readability of the source. Whitespace (including newlines) is ignored after '@anchor'. Anchor names and node names may not conflict. Anchors and nodes are given similar treatment in some ways; for example, the 'goto-node' command takes either an anchor name or a node name as an argument. (*Note (info)Go to node::.) Also like node names, anchor names cannot include some characters (*note Node Line Requirements::). Because of this duality, when you delete or rename a node, it is usually a good idea to define an '@anchor' with the old name. That way, any links to the old node, whether from other Texinfo manuals or general web pages, keep working. You can also do this with the 'RENAMED_NODES_FILE' feature of 'makeinfo' (*note HTML Xref Link Preservation::). Both methods keep links on the web working; the only substantive difference is that defining anchors also makes the old node names available when reading the document in Info.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Node Menu Illustration, Prev: @anchor, Up: Nodes 6.4 Node and Menu Illustration ============================== Here is a copy of the diagram shown earlier that illustrates a Texinfo file with three chapters, each of which contains two sections. The "root" is at the top of the diagram and the "leaves" are at the bottom. This is how such a diagram is drawn conventionally; it illustrates an upside-down tree. For this reason, the root node is called the 'Top' node, and 'Up' node pointers carry you closer to the root. Top | ------------------------------------- | | | Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 | | | -------- -------- -------- | | | | | | Section Section Section Section Section Section 1.1 1.2 2.1 2.2 3.1 3.2 Using explicit pointers (not recommended, but for shown for purposes of the example), the fully-written command to start Chapter 2 would be this: @node Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 1, Top @comment node-name, next, previous, up This '@node' line says that the name of this node is "Chapter 2", the name of the 'Next' node is "Chapter 3", the name of the 'Previous' node is "Chapter 1", and the name of the 'Up' node is "Top". You can (and should) omit writing out these node names if your document is hierarchically organized (*note makeinfo Pointer Creation::), but the pointer relationships still obtain. Note: 'Next' and 'Previous' refer to nodes at the _same hierarchical level_ in the manual, not necessarily to the next node within the Texinfo file. In the Texinfo file, the subsequent node may be at a lower level--a section-level node most often follows a chapter-level node, for example. (The 'Top' node contains the exception to this rule. Since the 'Top' node is the only node at that level, 'Next' refers to the first following node, which is almost always a chapter or chapter-level node.) To go to Sections 2.1 and 2.2 using Info, you need a menu inside Chapter 2. (*Note Menus::.) You would write the menu just before the beginning of Section 2.1, like this: @menu * Sect. 2.1:: Description of this section. * Sect. 2.2:: Description. @end menu Using explicit pointers, the node for Sect. 2.1 is written like this: @node Sect. 2.1, Sect. 2.2, Chapter 2, Chapter 2 @comment node-name, next, previous, up In Info format, the 'Next' and 'Previous' pointers of a node usually lead to other nodes at the same level--from chapter to chapter or from section to section (sometimes, as shown, the 'Previous' pointer points up); an 'Up' pointer usually leads to a node at the level above (closer to the 'Top' node); and a 'Menu' leads to nodes at a level below (closer to 'leaves'). (A cross reference can point to a node at any level; see *note Cross References::.) Usually, an '@node' command and a chapter structuring command are conventionally used together, in that order, often followed by indexing commands. (As shown in the example above, you may follow the '@node' line with a comment line, e.g., to show which pointer is which if explicit pointers are used.) The Texinfo processors use this construct to determine the relationships between nodes and sectioning commands. Here is the beginning of the chapter in this manual called "Ending a Texinfo File". This shows an '@node' line followed by an '@chapter' line, and then by indexing lines. The manual uses implictly determined node pointers; therefore, nothing else is needed on the '@node' line. @node Ending a File @chapter Ending a Texinfo File @cindex Ending a Texinfo file @cindex Texinfo file ending @cindex File ending An earlier version of the manual used explicit node pointers. Here is the beginning of the same chapter for that case. This shows an '@node' line followed by a comment line, an '@chapter' line, and then by indexing lines. @node Ending a File, Structuring, Beginning a File, Top @comment node-name, next, previous, up @chapter Ending a Texinfo File @cindex Ending a Texinfo file ...  File: texinfo.info, Node: Menus, Next: Cross References, Prev: Nodes, Up: Top 7 Menus ******* "Menus" contain pointers to subordinate nodes. In online output, you use menus to go to such nodes. Menus have no effect in printed manuals and do not appear in them. It's usually best if a node with a menu does not contain much text. If you find yourself with a lot of text before a menu, we generally recommend moving all but a couple of paragraphs into a new subnode. Otherwise, it is easy for readers to miss the menu. * Menu: * Menu Location:: Menus go at the ends of nodes. * Writing a Menu:: What is a menu? * Menu Parts:: A menu entry has three parts. * Less Cluttered Menu Entry:: Two part menu entry. * Menu Example:: Two and three part menu entries. * Other Info Files:: How to refer to a different Info file.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Menu Location, Next: Writing a Menu, Up: Menus 7.1 Menu Location ================= There may be at most one menu in a node. A menu is conventionally located at the end of a node, without any regular text or additional commands between the '@end menu' and the beginning of the next node. This convention is useful, since a reader who uses the menu could easily miss any such text. Also, any such post-menu text will be considered part of the menu in Info output (which has no marker for the end of a menu). Thus, a line beginning with '* ' will likely be incorrectly handled. Technically, menus can carry you to any node, regardless of the structure of the document; even to nodes in a different Info file. However, we do not recommend making use of this, because it is hard for readers to follow. Also, the 'makeinfo' implicit pointer creation feature (*note makeinfo Pointer Creation::) and GNU Emacs Texinfo mode updating commands work only to create menus of subordinate nodes in a hierarchically structured document. It is much better to use cross references to refer to arbitrary nodes. Years ago, we recommended using an '@heading' command within an '@ifinfo' conditional instead of the normal sectioning commands after a very short node with a menu. This had the advantage of making the printed output look better, because there was no very short text between two headings on the page. But it does not work with 'makeinfo''s implicit pointer creation, and it also makes the XML output incorrect, since it does not reflect the true document structure. So, we no longer recommend this.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Writing a Menu, Next: Menu Parts, Prev: Menu Location, Up: Menus 7.2 Writing a Menu ================== A menu consists of an '@menu' command on a line by itself followed by menu entry lines or menu comment lines and then by an '@end menu' command on a line by itself. A menu looks like this: @menu Larger Units of Text * Files:: All about handling files. * Multiples: Buffers. Multiple buffers; editing several files at once. @end menu In a menu, every line that begins with an '* ' is a "menu entry". (Note the space after the asterisk.) A line that does not start with an '* ' may also appear in a menu. Such a line is not a menu entry but rather a "menu comment" line that appears in the Info file. In the example above, the line 'Larger Units of Text' is such a menu comment line; the two lines starting with '* ' are menu entries. Space characters in a menu are preserved as-is in the Info output; this allows you to format the menu as you wish. Unfortunately you must type node names without any extra spaces or some versions of some Info readers will not find the node (*note Node Line Requirements::). In the HTML output from 'makeinfo', the 'accesskey' attribute is used with the values '1'...'9' for the first nine entries. This allows people using web browsers to follow the first menu entries using (typically) 'M-DIGIT', e.g., 'M-1' for the first entry.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Menu Parts, Next: Less Cluttered Menu Entry, Prev: Writing a Menu, Up: Menus 7.3 The Parts of a Menu ======================= A menu entry has three parts, only the second of which is required: 1. The menu entry name (optional). 2. The name of the node (required). 3. A description of the item (optional). The template for a generic menu entry looks like this (but see the next section for one more possibility): * MENU-ENTRY-NAME: NODE-NAME. DESCRIPTION Follow the menu entry name with a single colon and follow the node name with tab, comma, newline, or the two characters period and space ('. '). 'makeinfo' warns when the text of a menu item (and node names and cross references) contains a problematic construct that will interfere with its parsing in Info. If you don't want to see the warnings, you can set the customization variable 'INFO_SPECIAL_CHARS_WARNING' to '0' (*note Other Customization Variables::). In Info, a user selects a node with the 'm' ('Info-menu') command. The menu entry name is what the user types after the 'm' command. The third part of a menu entry is a descriptive phrase or sentence. Menu entry names and node names are often short; the description explains to the reader what the node is about. A useful description complements the node name rather than repeats it. The description, which is optional, can spread over multiple lines; if it does, some authors prefer to indent the second line while others prefer to align it with the first (and all others). It's up to you. An empty line, or the next menu entry, ends a description.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Less Cluttered Menu Entry, Next: Menu Example, Prev: Menu Parts, Up: Menus 7.4 Less Cluttered Menu Entry ============================= When the menu entry name and node name are the same, you can write the name immediately after the asterisk and space at the beginning of the line and follow the name with two colons. For example, write * Name:: DESCRIPTION instead of * Name: Name. DESCRIPTION We recommend using the node name for the menu entry name whenever possible, since it reduces visual clutter in the menu.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Menu Example, Next: Other Info Files, Prev: Less Cluttered Menu Entry, Up: Menus 7.5 A Menu Example ================== A menu looks like this in Texinfo: @menu * menu entry name: Node name. A short description. * Node name:: This form is preferred. @end menu This produces: * menu: * menu entry name: Node name. A short description. * Node name:: This form is preferred. Here is an example as you might see it in a Texinfo file: @menu Larger Units of Text * Files:: All about handling files. * Multiples: Buffers. Multiple buffers; editing several files at once. @end menu This produces: * menu: Larger Units of Text * Files:: All about handling files. * Multiples: Buffers. Multiple buffers; editing several files at once. In this example, the menu has two entries. 'Files' is both a menu entry name and the name of the node referred to by that name. 'Multiples' is the menu entry name; it refers to the node named 'Buffers'. The line 'Larger Units of Text' is a comment; it appears in the menu, but is not an entry. Since no file name is specified with either 'Files' or 'Buffers', they must be the names of nodes in the same Info file (*note Referring to Other Info Files: Other Info Files.).  File: texinfo.info, Node: Other Info Files, Prev: Menu Example, Up: Menus 7.6 Referring to Other Info Files ================================= You can create a menu entry that enables a reader in Info to go to a node in another Info file by writing the file name in parentheses just before the node name. Some examples: @menu * FIRST-ENTRY-NAME:(FILENAME)NODENAME. DESCRIPTION * (FILENAME)SECOND-NODE:: DESCRIPTION @end menu For example, to refer directly to the 'Outlining' and 'Rebinding' nodes in the 'Emacs Manual', you could write a menu like this: @menu * Outlining: (emacs)Outline Mode. The major mode for editing outlines. * (emacs)Rebinding:: How to redefine the meaning of a key. @end menu If you do not list the node name, but only name the file, then Info presumes that you are referring to the 'Top' node. Examples: * Info: (info). Documentation browsing system. * (emacs):: The extensible, self-documenting text editor. The GNU Emacs Texinfo mode menu updating commands only work with nodes within the current buffer, so you cannot use them to create menus that refer to other files. You must write such menus by hand.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Cross References, Next: Marking Text, Prev: Menus, Up: Top 8 Cross References ****************** "Cross references" are used to refer the reader to other parts of the same or different Texinfo files. In Texinfo, nodes and anchors are the places to which cross references can refer. * Menu: * References:: What cross references are for. * Cross Reference Commands:: A summary of the different commands. * Cross Reference Parts:: A cross reference has several parts. * @xref:: Begin a reference with 'See' ... * Top Node Naming:: How to refer to the beginning of another file. * @ref:: A reference for the last part of a sentence. * @pxref:: How to write a parenthetical cross reference. * @inforef:: How to refer to an Info-only file. * @url:: How to refer to a uniform resource locator. * @cite:: How to refer to books not in the Info system.  File: texinfo.info, Node: References, Next: Cross Reference Commands, Up: Cross References 8.1 What References Are For =========================== Often, but not always, a printed document should be designed so that it can be read sequentially. People tire of flipping back and forth to find information that should be presented to them as they need it. However, in any document, some information will be too detailed for the current context, or incidental to it; use cross references to provide access to such information. Also, an online help system or a reference manual is not like a novel; few read such documents in sequence from beginning to end. Instead, people look up what they need. For this reason, such creations should contain many cross references to help readers find other information that they may not have read. In a printed manual, a cross reference results in a page reference, unless it is to another manual altogether, in which case the cross reference names that manual. In Info, a cross reference results in an entry that you can follow using the Info 'f' command. (*Note Following cross-references: (info)Help-Xref.) In HTML, a cross reference results in an hyperlink. The various cross reference commands use nodes (or anchors, *note @anchor::) to define cross reference locations. This is evident in Info and HTML, in which a cross reference takes you to the specified location. TeX also needs nodes to define cross reference locations, but the action is less obvious. When TeX generates a DVI file, it records each node's page number and uses the page numbers in making references. Thus, even if you are writing a manual that will only be printed, and not used online, you must nonetheless write '@node' lines in order to name the places to which you make cross references.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Cross Reference Commands, Next: Cross Reference Parts, Prev: References, Up: Cross References 8.2 Different Cross Reference Commands ====================================== There are four different cross reference commands: '@xref' Used to start a sentence in the printed manual and in HTML with 'See ...' or an Info cross reference saying '*Note NAME: NODE.'. '@ref' Used within or, more often, at the end of a sentence; produces just the reference in the printed manual and in HTML without the preceding 'See' (same as '@xref' for Info). '@pxref' Used within parentheses, at the end of a sentence, or otherwise before punctuation, to make a reference. Its output starts with a lowercase 'see' in the printed manual and in HTML, and a lowercase '*note' in Info. ('p' is for 'parenthesis'.) '@inforef' Used to make a reference to an Info file for which there is no printed manual. The '@cite' command is used to make references to books and manuals for which there is no corresponding Info file and, therefore, no node to which to point. *Note @cite::.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Cross Reference Parts, Next: @xref, Prev: Cross Reference Commands, Up: Cross References 8.3 Parts of a Cross Reference ============================== A cross reference command to a node requires only one argument, which is the name of the node to which it refers. But a cross reference command may contain up to four additional arguments. By using these arguments, you can provide a cross reference name, a topic description or section title for the printed output, the name of a different manual file, and the name of a different printed manual. To refer to another manual as a whole, the manual file and/or the name of the printed manual are the only required arguments (*note Top Node Naming::). Here is a simple cross reference example: @xref{Node name}. which produces *Note Node name::. in Info and See Section NNN [Node name], page PPP. in a printed manual. Here is an example of a full five-part cross reference: @xref{Node name, Cross Reference Name, Particular Topic, info-file-name, A Printed Manual}, for details. which produces *Note Cross Reference Name: (info-file-name)Node name, for details. in Info and See section "Particular Topic" in A Printed Manual, for details. in a printed book. The five possible arguments for a cross reference are: 1. The node or anchor name (required, except for reference to whole manuals). This is the location to which the cross reference takes you. In a printed document, the location of the node provides the page reference only for references within the same document. 2. The cross reference name. If you include this argument, it becomes the first part of the cross reference. It is usually omitted; then the topic description (third argument) is used if it was specified; if that was omitted as well, the node name is used. 3. A topic description or section name. Often, this is the title of the section. This is used as the name of the reference in the printed manual. If omitted, the node name is used. 4. The name of the manual file in which the reference is located, if it is different from the current file. This name is used both for Info and HTML. 5. The name of a printed manual from a different Texinfo file. The template for a full five argument cross reference looks like this: @xref{NODE-NAME, CROSS-REFERENCE-NAME, TITLE-OR-TOPIC, INFO-FILE-NAME, PRINTED-MANUAL-TITLE}. Cross references with one, two, three, four, and five arguments are described separately following the description of '@xref'. Write a node name in a cross reference in exactly the same way as in the '@node' line, including the same capitalization; otherwise, the formatters may not find the reference. 'makeinfo' warns when the text of a cross reference (and node names and menu items) contains a problematic construct that will interfere with its parsing in Info. If you don't want to see the warnings, you can set the customization variable 'INFO_SPECIAL_CHARS_WARNING' to '0' (*note Other Customization Variables::).  File: texinfo.info, Node: @xref, Next: Top Node Naming, Prev: Cross Reference Parts, Up: Cross References 8.4 '@xref' =========== The '@xref' command generates a cross reference for the beginning of a sentence. The Info formatting commands convert it into an Info cross reference, which the Info 'f' command can use to bring you directly to another node. The TeX typesetting commands convert it into a page reference, or a reference to another book or manual. In the HTML output format the cross reference is output as a hyperlink. * Menu: * Reference Syntax:: What a reference looks like and requires. * One Argument:: '@xref' with one argument. * Two Arguments:: '@xref' with two arguments. * Three Arguments:: '@xref' with three arguments. * Four and Five Arguments:: '@xref' with four and five arguments.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Reference Syntax, Next: One Argument, Up: @xref 8.4.1 What a Reference Looks Like and Requires ---------------------------------------------- Most often, an Info cross reference looks like this: *Note NODE-NAME::. or like this *Note CROSS-REFERENCE-NAME: NODE-NAME. In TeX, a cross reference looks like this: See Section SECTION-NUMBER [NODE-NAME], page PAGE. or like this See Section SECTION-NUMBER [TITLE-OR-TOPIC], page PAGE. The '@xref' command does not generate a period or comma to end the cross reference automatically. You must write that period or comma yourself; otherwise, Info will not recognize the end of the reference. (The '@pxref' command works differently; *note @pxref::.) Caution: A period or comma _must_ follow the closing brace of an '@xref'. It is required to terminate the cross reference. This period or comma will appear in the output. '@xref' must refer to a node by name. Use '@node' to define the node (*note Writing a Node::), or '@anchor' (*note @anchor::). '@xref' is followed by several arguments inside braces, separated by commas. Whitespace before and after these commas is ignored. A cross reference to a node within the current file requires only the name of a node; but it may contain up to four additional arguments. Each of these variations produces a cross reference that looks somewhat different. A cross reference to another manual as a whole only requires the fourth or fifth argument. Note: Commas separate arguments in a cross reference, so you must not include a comma in the title or any other part lest the formatters mistake them for separators. '@comma{}' may be used to protect such commas (*note Inserting a Comma::).  File: texinfo.info, Node: One Argument, Next: Two Arguments, Prev: Reference Syntax, Up: @xref 8.4.2 '@xref' with One Argument ------------------------------- The simplest form of '@xref' takes one argument, the name of another node in the same Texinfo file. The Info formatters produce output that the Info readers can use to jump to the reference; TeX produces output that specifies the page and section number for you; the HTML output is a normal hyperlink. For example, @xref{Tropical Storms}. produces *Note Tropical Storms::. in Info and See Section 3.1 [Tropical Storms], page 24. in a printed manual. (Note that in the preceding example the closing brace to '@xref''s argument is followed by a period.) You can write a clause after the cross reference, like this: @xref{Tropical Storms}, for more info. which produces *Note Tropical Storms::, for more info. in Info and See Section 3.1 [Tropical Storms], page 24, for more info. in a printed manual. Note that in the preceding example the closing brace to '@xref' is followed by a comma, then the additional text. It's a common mistake to follow an '@xref' command with a space, but this is never correct.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Two Arguments, Next: Three Arguments, Prev: One Argument, Up: @xref 8.4.3 '@xref' with Two Arguments -------------------------------- With two arguments, the second is used as the name of the cross reference, while the first is still the name of the node to which the cross reference points. The template is like this: @xref{NODE-NAME, CROSS-REFERENCE-NAME}. For example, @xref{Electrical Effects, Lightning}. produces: *Note Lightning: Electrical Effects. in Info and See Section 5.2 [Electrical Effects], page 57. in a printed manual. (Note that in the preceding example the closing brace is followed by a period; and that the node name is printed, not the cross reference name.) You can write a clause after the cross reference, like this: @xref{Electrical Effects, Lightning}, for more info. which produces *Note Lightning: Electrical Effects, for more info. in Info and See Section 5.2 [Electrical Effects], page 57, for more info. in a printed manual. (Note that in the preceding example the closing brace is followed by a comma, and then by the clause, which is followed by a period.) The second argument to cross references must observe some of the restrictions for node names (*note Node Line Requirements::). The most common issue is that colons cannot be used, since that interferes with the parsing of the Info file.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Three Arguments, Next: Four and Five Arguments, Prev: Two Arguments, Up: @xref 8.4.4 '@xref' with Three Arguments ---------------------------------- A third argument replaces the node name in the TeX output. The third argument should be the name of the section in the printed output, or else state the topic discussed by that section. Often, you will want to use initial uppercase letters so it will be easier to read when the reference is printed. Use a third argument when the node name is unsuitable because of syntax or meaning. Remember to write a comma or period after the closing brace of an '@xref' to terminate the cross reference. In the following examples, a clause follows a terminating comma. The template is like this: @xref{NODE-NAME, CROSS-REFERENCE-NAME, TITLE-OR-TOPIC}. For example, @xref{Electrical Effects, Lightning, Thunder and Lightning}, for details. produces *Note Lightning: Electrical Effects, for details. in Info and See Section 5.2 [Thunder and Lightning], page 57, for details. in a printed manual. If a third argument is given and the second one is empty, then the third argument serves for both. (Note how two commas, side by side, mark the empty second argument.) @xref{Electrical Effects, , Thunder and Lightning}, for details. produces *Note Thunder and Lightning: Electrical Effects, for details. in Info and See Section 5.2 [Thunder and Lightning], page 57, for details. in a printed manual. The third argument to cross references must observe some of the restrictions for node names (*note Node Line Requirements::). The most common issue is that colons cannot be used, since that interferes with the parsing of the Info file. As a practical matter, it is often best to write cross references with just the first argument if the node name and the section title are the same (or nearly so), and with the first and third arguments only if the node name and title are different. Texinfo offers a setting to use the section title instead of node names by default in cross references (an explicitly specified third argument still takes precedence): @xrefautomaticsectiontitle on Typically this line would be given near the beginning of the document and used for the whole manual. But you can turn it off if you want ('@xrefautomaticsectiontitle off'), for example, if you're including some other sub-document that doesn't have suitable section names.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Four and Five Arguments, Prev: Three Arguments, Up: @xref 8.4.5 '@xref' with Four and Five Arguments ------------------------------------------ In a cross reference, a fourth argument specifies the name of another Info file, different from the file in which the reference appears, and a fifth argument specifies its title as a printed manual. Remember that a comma or period must follow the closing brace of an '@xref' command to terminate the cross reference. The full template is: @xref{NODE-NAME, CROSS-REFERENCE-NAME, TITLE-OR-TOPIC, INFO-FILE-NAME, PRINTED-MANUAL-TITLE}. For example, @xref{Electrical Effects, Lightning, Thunder and Lightning, weather, An Introduction to Meteorology}. produces this output in Info: *Note Lightning: (weather)Electrical Effects. As you can see, the name of the Info file is enclosed in parentheses and precedes the name of the node. In a printed manual, the reference looks like this: See section "Thunder and Lightning" in 'An Introduction to Meteorology'. The title of the printed manual is typeset like '@cite'; and the reference lacks a page number since TeX cannot know to which page a reference refers when that reference is to another manual. Next case: often, you will leave out the second argument when you use the long version of '@xref'. In this case, the third argument, the topic description, will be used as the cross reference name in Info. For example, @xref{Electrical Effects, , Thunder and Lightning, weather, An Introduction to Meteorology}. produces *Note Thunder and Lightning: (weather)Electrical Effects. in Info and See section "Thunder and Lightning" in 'An Introduction to Meteorology'. in a printed manual. Next case: If the node name and the section title are the same in the other manual, you may also leave out the section title. In this case, the node name is used in both instances. For example, @xref{Electrical Effects,,, weather, An Introduction to Meteorology}. produces *Note (weather)Electrical Effects::. in Info and See section "Electrical Effects" in 'An Introduction to Meteorology'. in a printed manual. A very unusual case: you may want to refer to another manual file that is within a single printed manual--when multiple Texinfo files are incorporated into the same TeX run but can create separate Info or HTML output files. In this case, you need to specify only the fourth argument, and not the fifth. Finally, it's also allowed to leave out all the arguments _except_ the fourth and fifth, to refer to another manual as a whole. See the next section.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Top Node Naming, Next: @ref, Prev: @xref, Up: Cross References 8.5 Naming a 'Top' Node ======================= Ordinarily, you must always name a node in a cross reference. However, it's not unusual to want to refer to another manual as a whole, rather than a particular section within it. In this case, giving any section name is an unnecessary distraction. So, with cross references to other manuals (*note Four and Five Arguments::), if the first argument is either 'Top' (capitalized just that way) or omitted entirely, and the third argument is omitted, the printed output includes no node or section name. (The Info output includes 'Top' if it was given.) For example, @xref{Top,,, make, The GNU Make Manual}. produces *Note (make)Top::. and See 'The GNU Make Manual'. Info readers will go to the Top node of the manual whether or not the 'Top' node is explicitly specified. It's also possible (and is historical practice) to refer to a whole manual by specifying the 'Top' node and an appropriate entry for the third argument to the '@xref' command. Using this idiom, to make a cross reference to 'The GNU Make Manual', you would write: @xref{Top,, Overview, make, The GNU Make Manual}. which produces *Note Overview: (make)Top. in Info and See section "Overview" in 'The GNU Make Manual'. in a printed manual. In this example, 'Top' is the name of the first node, and 'Overview' is the name of the first section of the manual. There is no widely-used convention for naming the first section in a printed manual, this is just what the Make manual happens to use. This arbitrariness of the first name is a principal reason why omitting the third argument in whole-manual cross references is preferable.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @ref, Next: @pxref, Prev: Top Node Naming, Up: Cross References 8.6 '@ref' ========== '@ref' is nearly the same as '@xref' except that it does not generate a 'See' in the printed output, just the reference itself. This makes it useful as the last part of a sentence. For example, For more information, @pxref{This}, and @ref{That}. produces in Info: For more information, *note This::, and *note That::. and in printed output: For more information, see Section 1.1 [This], page 1, and Section 1.2 [That], page 2. The '@ref' command can tempt writers to express themselves in a manner that is suitable for a printed manual but looks awkward in the Info format. Bear in mind that your audience could be using both the printed and the Info format. For example: Sea surges are described in @ref{Hurricanes}. looks ok in the printed output: Sea surges are described in Section 6.7 [Hurricanes], page 72. but is awkward to read in Info, "note" being a verb: Sea surges are described in *note Hurricanes::. You should write a period or comma immediately after an '@ref' command with two or more arguments. If there is no such following punctuation, 'makeinfo' will generate a (grammatically incorrect) period in the Info output; otherwise, the cross reference would fail completely, due to the current syntax of Info format. In general, it is best to use '@ref' only when you need some word other than "see" to precede the reference. When "see" (or "See") is ok, '@xref' and '@pxref' are preferable.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @pxref, Next: @inforef, Prev: @ref, Up: Cross References 8.7 '@pxref' ============ The parenthetical reference command, '@pxref', is nearly the same as '@xref', but it is best used at the end of a sentence or before a closing parenthesis. The command differs from '@xref' in two ways: 1. TeX typesets the reference for the printed manual with a lowercase 'see' rather than an uppercase 'See'. 2. The Info formatting commands automatically end the reference with a closing colon or period, if necessary. '@pxref' is designed so that the output looks right and works right at the end of a sentence or parenthetical phrase, both in printed output and in an Info file. In a printed manual, a closing comma or period should not follow a cross reference within parentheses; such punctuation is wrong. But in an Info file, suitable closing punctuation must follow the cross reference so Info can recognize its end. '@pxref' spares you the need to use complicated methods to put a terminator into one form of the output and not the other. With one argument, a parenthetical cross reference looks like this: ... storms cause flooding (@pxref{Hurricanes}) ... which produces ... storms cause flooding (*note Hurricanes::) ... in Info and ... storms cause flooding (see Section 6.7 [Hurricanes], page 72) ... in a printed manual. With two arguments, a parenthetical cross reference has this template: ... (@pxref{NODE-NAME, CROSS-REFERENCE-NAME}) ... which produces ... (*note CROSS-REFERENCE-NAME: NODE-NAME.) ... in Info and ... (see Section NNN [NODE-NAME], page PPP) ... in a printed manual. '@pxref' can be used with up to five arguments, just like '@xref' (*note @xref::). In past versions of Texinfo, it was not allowed to write punctuation after an '@pxref', so it could be used _only_ before a right parenthesis. This is no longer the case, so now it can be used (for example) at the end of a sentence, where a lowercase "see" works best. For instance: ... For more information, @pxref{More}. which outputs (in Info): ... For more information, *note More::. In general, '@pxref' should only be followed by a comma, period, or right parenthesis; in other cases, 'makeinfo' has to insert a period to make the cross reference work correctly in Info, and that period looks wrong. As a matter of style, '@pxref' is best used at the ends of sentences. Although it technically works in the middle of a sentence, that location breaks up the flow of reading.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @inforef, Next: @url, Prev: @pxref, Up: Cross References 8.8 '@inforef': Cross References to Info-only Material ====================================================== '@inforef' is used for making cross references to Info documents--even from a printed manual. This might be because you want to refer to conditional '@ifinfo' text (*note Conditionals::), or because printed output is not available (perhaps because there is no Texinfo source), among other possibilities. The command takes either two or three arguments, in the following order: 1. The node name. 2. The cross reference name (optional). 3. The Info file name. Separate the arguments with commas, as with '@xref'. Also, you must terminate the reference with a comma or period after the '}', as you do with '@xref'. The template is: @inforef{NODE-NAME, CROSS-REFERENCE-NAME, INFO-FILE-NAME}, For example, @inforef{Advanced, Advanced Info commands, info}, for more information. produces (in Info): *Note Advanced Info commands: (info)Advanced, for more information. and (in the printed output): See Info file 'info', node 'Advanced', for more information. (This particular example is not realistic, since the Info manual is written in Texinfo, so all formats are available. In fact, we don't know of any extant Info-only manuals.) The converse of '@inforef' is '@cite', which is used to refer to printed works for which no Info form exists. *Note @cite::.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @url, Next: @cite, Prev: @inforef, Up: Cross References 8.9 '@url', '@uref{URL[, TEXT][, REPLACEMENT]}' =============================================== '@uref' produces a reference to a uniform resource locator (url). It takes one mandatory argument, the url, and two optional arguments which control the text that is displayed. In HTML and PDF output, '@uref' produces a link you can follow. (To merely indicate a url without creating a link people can follow, use '@indicateurl', *note @indicateurl::.) '@url' is a synonym for '@uref'. (Originally, '@url' had the meaning of '@indicateurl', but in practice it was almost always misused. So we've changed the meaning.) The second argument, if specified, is the text to display (the default is the url itself); in Info, DVI, and PDF output, but not in HTML output, the url is output in addition to this text. The third argument, if specified, is the text to display, but in this case the url is not output in any format. This is useful when the text is already sufficiently referential, as in a man page. Also, if the third argument is given, the second argument is ignored. * Menu: * @url Examples:: Examples of using all the forms of '@url'. * URL Line Breaking:: How lines are broken within '@url' text. * @url PDF Output Format:: A special option to hide links in PDF output. * PDF Colors:: Colorizing urls and other links in PDF output.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @url Examples, Next: URL Line Breaking, Up: @url 8.9.1 @url Examples ------------------- First, here is an example of the simplest form of '@url', with just one argument. The given url is both the target and the visible text of the link: The official GNU ftp site is @uref{http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu}. produces: The official GNU ftp site is <http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu>. Two-argument form of '@url' ........................... Here is an example of the two-argument form: The official @uref{http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu, GNU ftp site} holds programs and texts. which produces: The official GNU ftp site (http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu) holds programs and texts. that is, the Info (and TeX, etc.) output is this: The official GNU ftp site (http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu) holds programs and texts. while the HTML output is this: The official <a href="http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu">GNU ftp site</a> holds programs and texts. Three-argument form of '@url' ............................. Finally, an example of the three-argument form: The @uref{/man.cgi/1/ls,,ls} program ... which, except for HTML, produces: The ls program ... but with HTML: The <a href="/man.cgi/1/ls">ls</a> program ... By the way, some people prefer to display urls in the unambiguous format: <URL:http://HOST/PATH> You can use this form in the input file if you wish. We feel it's not necessary to include the '<URL:' and '>' in the output, since to be useful any software that tries to detect urls in text already has to detect them without the '<URL:'.  File: texinfo.info, Node: URL Line Breaking, Next: @url PDF Output Format, Prev: @url Examples, Up: @url 8.9.2 URL Line Breaking ----------------------- TeX allows line breaking within urls at only a few characters (which are special in urls): '&', '.', '#', '?', and '/' (but not between two '/' characters). A tiny amount of stretchable space is also inserted around these characters to help with line breaking. For HTML output, modern browsers will also do line breaking within displayed urls. If you need to allow breaks at other characters you can insert '@/' as needed (*note Line Breaks::). By default, in TeX any such breaks at special characters will occur after the character. Some people prefer such breaks to happen after the special character. This can be controlled with the '@urefbreakstyle' command (this command has effect only in TeX): @urefbreakstyle HOW where the argument HOW is one of these words: 'after' (the default) Potentially break after the special characters. 'before' Potentially break before the special characters. 'none' Do not consider breaking at the special characters at all; any potential breaks must be manually inserted.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @url PDF Output Format, Next: PDF Colors, Prev: URL Line Breaking, Up: @url 8.9.3 @url PDF Output Format ---------------------------- If the ultimate purpose of a PDF is only to be viewed online, perhaps similar to HTML in some inchoate way, you may not want the urls to be included in the visible text (just as urls are not visible to readers of web pages). Texinfo provides a PDF-specific option for this, which must be used inside '@tex': @tex \global\urefurlonlylinktrue @end tex The result is that '@url{http://www.gnu.org, GNU}' has the visible output of just 'GNU', with a link target of <http://www.gnu.org>. Ordinarily, the visible output would include both the label and the url: 'GNU (<http://www.gnu.org>)'. This option only has effect when the PDF output is produced with the pdfTeX program, not with other ways of getting from Texinfo to PDF (e.g., TeX to DVI to PDF). Consequently, it is ok to specify this option unconditionally within '@tex', as shown above. It is ignored when DVI is being produced.  File: texinfo.info, Node: PDF Colors, Prev: @url PDF Output Format, Up: @url 8.9.4 PDF Colors ---------------- By default, urls and cross-reference links are printed in black in PDF output. Very occasionally, however, you may want to highlight such "live" links with a different color, as is commonly done on web pages. Texinfo provides a PDF-specific option for specifying these colors, which must be used inside '@tex': @tex \global\def\linkcolor{1 0 0} % red \global\def\urlcolor{0 1 0} % green @end tex '\urlcolor' changes the color of '@url' output (both the actual url and any textual label), while '\linkcolor' changes the color for cross-references to nodes, etc. They are independent. The three given values must be numbers between 0 and 1, specifying the amount of red, green, and blue respectively. These definitions only have an effect when the PDF output is produced with the pdfTeX program, not with other ways of getting from Texinfo to PDF (e.g., TeX to DVI to PDF). Consequently, it is ok to specify this option unconditionally within '@tex', as shown above. It is ignored when DVI is being produced. We do not recommend colorizing just for fun; unless you have a specific reason to use colors, best to skip it.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @cite, Prev: @url, Up: Cross References 8.10 '@cite'{REFERENCE} ======================= Use the '@cite' command for the name of a book that lacks a companion Info file. The command produces italics in the printed manual, and quotation marks in the Info file. If a book is written in Texinfo, it is better to use a cross reference command since a reader can easily follow such a reference in Info. *Note @xref::.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Marking Text, Next: Quotations and Examples, Prev: Cross References, Up: Top 9 Marking Text, Words and Phrases ********************************* In Texinfo, you can mark words and phrases in a variety of ways. The Texinfo formatters use this information to determine how to highlight the text. You can specify, for example, whether a word or phrase is a defining occurrence, a metasyntactic variable, or a symbol used in a program. Also, you can emphasize text, in several different ways. * Menu: * Indicating:: How to indicate definitions, files, etc. * Emphasis:: How to emphasize text.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Indicating, Next: Emphasis, Up: Marking Text 9.1 Indicating Definitions, Commands, etc. ========================================== Texinfo has commands for indicating just what kind of object a piece of text refers to. For example, email addresses are marked by '@email'; that way, the result can be a live link to send email when the output format supports it. If the email address was simply marked as "print in a typewriter font", that would not be possible. * Menu: * Useful Highlighting:: Highlighting provides useful information. * @code:: Indicating program code. * @kbd:: Showing keyboard input. * @key:: Specifying keys. * @samp:: Indicating a literal sequence of characters. * @verb:: Indicating a verbatim sequence of characters. * @var:: Indicating metasyntactic variables. * @env:: Indicating environment variables. * @file:: Indicating file names. * @command:: Indicating command names. * @option:: Indicating option names. * @dfn:: Specifying definitions. * @abbr:: Indicating abbreviations. * @acronym:: Indicating acronyms. * @indicateurl:: Indicating an example url. * @email:: Indicating an electronic mail address.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Useful Highlighting, Next: @code, Up: Indicating 9.1.1 Highlighting Commands are Useful -------------------------------------- The commands serve a variety of purposes: '@code{SAMPLE-CODE}' Indicate text that is a literal example of a piece of a program. *Note @code::. '@kbd{KEYBOARD-CHARACTERS}' Indicate keyboard input. *Note @kbd::. '@key{KEY-NAME}' Indicate the conventional name for a key on a keyboard. *Note @key::. '@samp{TEXT}' Indicate text that is a literal example of a sequence of characters. *Note @samp::. '@verb{TEXT}' Write a verbatim sequence of characters. *Note @verb::. '@var{METASYNTACTIC-VARIABLE}' Indicate a metasyntactic variable. *Note @var::. '@env{ENVIRONMENT-VARIABLE}' Indicate an environment variable. *Note @env::. '@file{FILE-NAME}' Indicate the name of a file. *Note @file::. '@command{COMMAND-NAME}' Indicate the name of a command. *Note @command::. '@option{OPTION}' Indicate a command-line option. *Note @option::. '@dfn{TERM}' Indicate the introductory or defining use of a term. *Note @dfn::. '@cite{REFERENCE}' Indicate the name of a book. *Note @cite::. '@abbr{ABBREVIATION}' Indicate an abbreviation, such as 'Comput.'. '@acronym{ACRONYM}' Indicate an acronym. *Note @acronym::. '@indicateurl{UNIFORM-RESOURCE-LOCATOR}' Indicate an example (that is, nonfunctional) uniform resource locator. *Note @indicateurl::. (Use '@url' (*note @url::) for live urls.) '@email{EMAIL-ADDRESS[, DISPLAYED-TEXT]}' Indicate an electronic mail address. *Note @email::.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @code, Next: @kbd, Prev: Useful Highlighting, Up: Indicating 9.1.2 '@code'{SAMPLE-CODE} -------------------------- Use the '@code' command to indicate text that is a piece of a program and which consists of entire syntactic tokens. Enclose the text in braces. Thus, you should use '@code' for an expression in a program, for the name of a variable or function used in a program, or for a keyword in a programming language. Use '@code' for command names in languages that resemble programming languages, such as Texinfo. For example, '@code' and '@samp' are produced by writing '@code{@@code}' and '@code{@@samp}' in the Texinfo source, respectively. It is incorrect to alter the case of a word inside an '@code' command when it appears at the beginning of a sentence. Most computer languages are case sensitive. In C, for example, 'Printf' is different from the identifier 'printf', and most likely is a misspelling of it. Even in languages which are not case sensitive, it is confusing to a human reader to see identifiers spelled in different ways. Pick one spelling and always use that. If you do not want to start a sentence with a command name written all in lowercase, you should rearrange the sentence. In the Info output, '@code' results in single quotation marks around the text. In other formats, '@code' argument is typeset in a typewriter (monospace) font. For example, The function returns @code{nil}. produces this: The function returns 'nil'. Here are some cases for which it is preferable _not_ to use '@code': * For shell command names such as 'ls' (use '@command'). * For environment variable such as 'TEXINPUTS' (use '@env'). * For shell options such as '-c' when such options stand alone (use '@option'). * An entire shell command often looks better if written using '@samp' rather than '@code'. In this case, the rule is to choose the more pleasing format. * For a string of characters shorter than a syntactic token. For example, if you are writing about 'goto-ch', which is just a part of the name for the 'goto-char' Emacs Lisp function, you should use '@samp'. * In general, when writing about the characters used in a token; for example, do not use '@code' when you are explaining what letters or printable symbols can be used in the names of functions. (Use '@samp'.) Also, you should not use '@code' to mark text that is considered input to programs unless the input is written in a language that is like a programming language. For example, you should not use '@code' for the keystroke commands of GNU Emacs (use '@kbd' instead) although you may use '@code' for the names of the Emacs Lisp functions that the keystroke commands invoke. By default, TeX will consider breaking lines at '-' and '_' characters within '@code' and related commands. This can be controlled with '@allowcodebreaks' (*note @allowcodebreaks::). The HTML output attempts to respect this for '-', but ultimately it is up to the browser's behavior. For Info, it seems better never to make such breaks. For Info, the quotes are omitted in the output of the '@code' command and related commands (e.g., '@kbd', '@command'), in typewriter-like contexts such as the '@example' environment (*note @example::) and '@code' itself, etc. To control which quoting characters are implicitly inserted by Texinfo processors in the output of '@code', etc., see the 'OPEN_QUOTE_SYMBOL' and 'CLOSE_QUOTE_SYMBOL' customization variables (*note Other Customization Variables::). This is separate from how actual quotation characters in the input document are handled (*note Inserting Quote Characters::).  File: texinfo.info, Node: @kbd, Next: @key, Prev: @code, Up: Indicating 9.1.3 '@kbd'{KEYBOARD-CHARACTERS} --------------------------------- Use the '@kbd' command for characters of input to be typed by users. For example, to refer to the characters 'M-a', write: @kbd{M-a} and to refer to the characters 'M-x shell', write: @kbd{M-x shell} By default, the '@kbd' command produces a different font (slanted typewriter instead of normal typewriter), so users can distinguish the characters that they are supposed to type from those that the computer outputs. Since the usage of '@kbd' varies from manual to manual, you can control the font switching with the '@kbdinputstyle' command. This command has no effect on Info output. Write this command at the beginning of a line with a single word as an argument, one of the following: 'code' Always use the same font for '@kbd' as '@code'. 'example' Use the distinguishing font for '@kbd' only in '@example' and similar environments. 'distinct' (the default) Always use the distinguishing font for '@kbd'. You can embed another @-command inside the braces of an '@kbd' command. Here, for example, is the way to describe a command that would be described more verbosely as "press the 'r' key and then press the <RETURN> key": @kbd{r @key{RET}} This produces: 'r <RET>'. (The present manual uses the default for '@kbdinputstyle'.) You also use the '@kbd' command if you are spelling out the letters you type; for example: To give the @code{logout} command, type the characters @kbd{l o g o u t @key{RET}}. This produces: To give the 'logout' command, type the characters 'l o g o u t <RET>'. (Also, this example shows that you can add spaces for clarity. If you explicitly want to mention a space character as one of the characters of input, write '@key{SPC}' for it.)  File: texinfo.info, Node: @key, Next: @samp, Prev: @kbd, Up: Indicating 9.1.4 '@key'{KEY-NAME} ---------------------- Use the '@key' command for the conventional name for a key on a keyboard, as in: @key{RET} You can use the '@key' command within the argument of an '@kbd' command when the sequence of characters to be typed includes one or more keys that are described by name. For example, to produce 'C-x <ESC>' and 'M-<TAB>' you would type: @kbd{C-x @key{ESC}} @kbd{M-@key{TAB}} Here is a list of the recommended names for keys: SPC Space RET Return LFD Linefeed (however, since most keyboards nowadays do not have a Linefeed key, it might be better to call this character 'C-j') TAB Tab BS Backspace ESC Escape DELETE Delete SHIFT Shift CTRL Control META Meta There are subtleties to handling words like 'meta' or 'ctrl' that are names of modifier keys. When mentioning a character in which the modifier key is used, such as 'Meta-a', use the '@kbd' command alone; do not use the '@key' command; but when you are referring to the modifier key in isolation, use the '@key' command. For example, write '@kbd{Meta-a}' to produce 'Meta-a' and '@key{META}' to produce <META>. As a convention in GNU manuals, '@key' should not be used in index entries.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @samp, Next: @verb, Prev: @key, Up: Indicating 9.1.5 '@samp'{TEXT} ------------------- Use the '@samp' command to indicate text that is a literal example or 'sample' of a sequence of characters in a file, string, pattern, etc. Enclose the text in braces. The argument appears within single quotation marks in both the Info file and the printed manual; in addition, it is printed in a fixed-width font. To match @samp{foo} at the end of the line, use the regexp @samp{foo$}. produces To match 'foo' at the end of the line, use the regexp 'foo$'. Any time you are referring to single characters, you should use '@samp' unless '@kbd' or '@key' is more appropriate. Also, you may use '@samp' for entire statements in C and for entire shell commands--in this case, '@samp' often looks better than '@code'. Basically, '@samp' is a catchall for whatever is not covered by '@code', '@kbd', '@key', '@command', etc. Only include punctuation marks within braces if they are part of the string you are specifying. Write punctuation marks outside the braces if those punctuation marks are part of the English text that surrounds the string. In the following sentence, for example, the commas and period are outside of the braces: In English, the vowels are @samp{a}, @samp{e}, @samp{i}, @samp{o}, @samp{u}, and sometimes @samp{y}. This produces: In English, the vowels are 'a', 'e', 'i', 'o', 'u', and sometimes 'y'.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @verb, Next: @var, Prev: @samp, Up: Indicating 9.1.6 '@verb'{CHARTEXTCHAR} --------------------------- Use the '@verb' command to print a verbatim sequence of characters. Like LaTeX's '\verb' command, the verbatim text can be quoted using any unique delimiter character. Enclose the verbatim text, including the delimiters, in braces. Text is printed in a fixed-width font: How many @verb{|@|}-escapes does one need to print this @verb{.@a @b.@c.} string or @verb{+@'e?`{}!`\+} this? produces How many @-escapes does one need to print this @a @b.@c string or @'e?`{}!`\ this? This is in contrast to '@samp' (see the previous section), '@code', and similar commands; in those cases, the argument is normal Texinfo text, where the three characters '@{}' are special, as usual. With '@verb', nothing is special except the delimiter character you choose. The delimiter character itself may appear inside the verbatim text, as shown above. As another example, '@verb{...}' prints a single (fixed-width) period. It is not reliable to use '@verb' inside other Texinfo constructs. In particular, it does not work to use '@verb' in anything related to cross referencing, such as section titles or figure captions.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @var, Next: @env, Prev: @verb, Up: Indicating 9.1.7 '@var'{METASYNTACTIC-VARIABLE} ------------------------------------ Use the '@var' command to indicate metasyntactic variables. A "metasyntactic variable" is something that stands for another piece of text. For example, you should use a metasyntactic variable in the documentation of a function to describe the arguments that are passed to that function. Do not use '@var' for the names of normal variables in computer programs. These are specific names, so '@code' is correct for them (@code). For example, the Emacs Lisp variable 'texinfo-tex-command' is not a metasyntactic variable; it is properly formatted using '@code'. Do not use '@var' for environment variables either; '@env' is correct for them (see the next section). The effect of '@var' in the Info file is to change the case of the argument to all uppercase. In the printed manual and HTML output, the argument is output in slanted type. For example, To delete file @var{filename}, type @samp{rm @var{filename}}. produces To delete file FILENAME, type 'rm FILENAME'. (Note that '@var' may appear inside '@code', '@samp', '@file', etc.) Write a metasyntactic variable all in lowercase without spaces, and use hyphens to make it more readable. Thus, the Texinfo source for the illustration of how to begin a Texinfo manual looks like this: \input texinfo @@setfilename @var{info-file-name} @@settitle @var{name-of-manual} This produces: \input texinfo @setfilename INFO-FILE-NAME @settitle NAME-OF-MANUAL In some documentation styles, metasyntactic variables are shown with angle brackets, for example: ..., type rm <filename> However, that is not the style that Texinfo uses.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @env, Next: @file, Prev: @var, Up: Indicating 9.1.8 '@env'{ENVIRONMENT-VARIABLE} ---------------------------------- Use the '@env' command to indicate environment variables, as used by many operating systems, including GNU. Do not use it for _meta_syntactic variables; use '@var' for those (see the previous section). '@env' is equivalent to '@code' in its effects. For example: The @env{PATH} environment variable ... produces The 'PATH' environment variable ...  File: texinfo.info, Node: @file, Next: @command, Prev: @env, Up: Indicating 9.1.9 '@file'{FILE-NAME} ------------------------ Use the '@file' command to indicate text that is the name of a file, buffer, or directory, or is the name of a node in Info. You can also use the command for file name suffixes. Do not use '@file' for symbols in a programming language; use '@code'. '@file' is equivalent to 'code' in its effects. For example, The @file{.el} files are in the @file{/usr/local/emacs/lisp} directory. produces The '.el' files are in the '/usr/local/emacs/lisp' directory.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @command, Next: @option, Prev: @file, Up: Indicating 9.1.10 '@command'{COMMAND-NAME} ------------------------------- Use the '@command' command to indicate command names, such as 'ls' or 'cc'. '@command' is equivalent to '@code' in its effects. For example: The command @command{ls} lists directory contents. produces The command 'ls' lists directory contents. You should write the name of a program in the ordinary text font, rather than using '@command', if you regard it as a new English word, such as 'Emacs' or 'Bison'. When writing an entire shell command invocation, as in 'ls -l', you should use either '@samp' or '@code' at your discretion.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @option, Next: @dfn, Prev: @command, Up: Indicating 9.1.11 '@option'{OPTION-NAME} ----------------------------- Use the '@option' command to indicate a command-line option; for example, '-l' or '--version' or '--output=FILENAME'. '@option' is equivalent to '@code' in its effects. For example: The option @option{-l} produces a long listing. produces The option '-l' produces a long listing.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @dfn, Next: @abbr, Prev: @option, Up: Indicating 9.1.12 '@dfn'{TERM} ------------------- Use the '@dfn' command to identify the introductory or defining use of a technical term. Use the command only in passages whose purpose is to introduce a term which will be used again or which the reader ought to know. Mere passing mention of a term for the first time does not deserve '@dfn'. The command generates italics in the printed manual, and double quotation marks in the Info file. For example: Getting rid of a file is called @dfn{deleting} it. produces Getting rid of a file is called "deleting" it. As a general rule, a sentence containing the defining occurrence of a term should be a definition of the term. The sentence does not need to say explicitly that it is a definition, but it should contain the information of a definition--it should make the meaning clear.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @abbr, Next: @acronym, Prev: @dfn, Up: Indicating 9.1.13 '@abbr'{ABBREVIATION[, MEANING]} --------------------------------------- You can use the '@abbr' command for general abbreviations. The abbreviation is given as the single argument in braces, as in '@abbr{Comput.}'. As a matter of style, or for particular abbreviations, you may prefer to omit periods, as in '@abbr{Mr} Stallman'. '@abbr' accepts an optional second argument, intended to be used for the meaning of the abbreviation. If the abbreviation ends with a lowercase letter and a period, and is not at the end of a sentence, and has no second argument, remember to use the '@.' command (*note Ending a Sentence::) to get the correct spacing. However, you do not have to use '@.' within the abbreviation itself; Texinfo automatically assumes periods within the abbreviation do not end a sentence. In TeX and in the Info output, the first argument is printed as-is; if the second argument is present, it is printed in parentheses after the abbreviation. In HTML the '<abbr>' tag is used; in Docbook, the '<abbrev>' tag is used. For instance: @abbr{Comput. J., Computer Journal} produces: Comput. J. (Computer Journal) For abbreviations consisting of all capital letters, you may prefer to use the '@acronym' command instead. See the next section for more on the usage of these two commands.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @acronym, Next: @indicateurl, Prev: @abbr, Up: Indicating 9.1.14 '@acronym'{ACRONYM[, MEANING]} ------------------------------------- You can use the '@acronym' command for abbreviations written in all capital letters, such as 'NASA'. The abbreviation is given as the single argument in braces, as in '@acronym{NASA}'. As a matter of style, or for particular acronyms, you may prefer to use periods, as in '@acronym{N.A.S.A.}'. '@acronym' accepts an optional second argument, intended to be used for the meaning of the acronym. If the acronym is at the end of a sentence, and if there is no second argument, remember to use the '@.' or similar command (*note Ending a Sentence::) to get the correct spacing. In TeX, the acronym is printed in slightly smaller font. In the Info output, the argument is printed as-is. In either format, if the second argument is present, it is printed in parentheses after the acronym. In HTML and Docbook the '<acronym>' tag is used. For instance (since GNU is a recursive acronym, we use '@acronym' recursively): @acronym{GNU, @acronym{GNU}'s Not Unix} produces: GNU (GNU's Not Unix) In some circumstances, it is conventional to print family names in all capitals. Don't use '@acronym' for this, since a name is not an acronym. Use '@sc' instead (*note Smallcaps::). '@abbr' and '@acronym' are closely related commands: they both signal to the reader that a shortened form is being used, and possibly give a meaning. When choosing whether to use these two commands, please bear the following in mind. - In common English usage, acronyms are a subset of abbreviations: they include pronounceable words like 'NATO', 'radar', and 'snafu'; some sources also include syllable acronyms like 'Usenet', hybrids like 'SIGGRAPH', and unpronounceable initialisms like 'FBI'. - In Texinfo, an acronym (but not an abbreviation) should consist only of capital letters and periods, no lowercase. - In TeX, an acronym (but not an abbreviation) is printed in a slightly smaller font. - Some browsers place a dotted bottom border under abbreviations but not acronyms. - It usually turns out to be quite difficult and/or time-consuming to consistently use '@acronym' for all sequences of uppercase letters. Furthermore, it looks strange for some acronyms to be in the normal font size and others to be smaller. Thus, a simpler approach you may wish to consider is to avoid '@acronym' and just typeset everything as normal text in all capitals: 'GNU', producing the output 'GNU'. - In general, it's not essential to use either of these commands for all abbreviations; use your judgment. Text is perfectly readable without them.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @indicateurl, Next: @email, Prev: @acronym, Up: Indicating 9.1.15 '@indicateurl'{UNIFORM-RESOURCE-LOCATOR} ----------------------------------------------- Use the '@indicateurl' command to indicate a uniform resource locator on the World Wide Web. This is purely for markup purposes and does not produce a link you can follow (use the '@url' or '@uref' command for that, *note @url::). '@indicateurl' is useful for urls which do not actually exist. For example: For example, the url might be @indicateurl{http://example.org/path}. which produces: For example, the url might be 'http://example.org/path'. The output from '@indicateurl' is more or less like that of '@samp' (*note @samp::).  File: texinfo.info, Node: @email, Prev: @indicateurl, Up: Indicating 9.1.16 '@email'{EMAIL-ADDRESS[, DISPLAYED-TEXT]} ------------------------------------------------ Use the '@email' command to indicate an electronic mail address. It takes one mandatory argument, the address, and one optional argument, the text to display (the default is the address itself). In Info, the address is shown in angle brackets, preceded by the text to display if any. In TeX, the angle brackets are omitted. In HTML output, '@email' produces a 'mailto' link that usually brings up a mail composition window. For example: Send bug reports to @email{bug-texinfo@@gnu.org}, suggestions to the @email{bug-texinfo@@gnu.org, same place}. produces Send bug reports to <bug-texinfo@gnu.org>, suggestions to the same place <bug-texinfo@gnu.org>.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Emphasis, Prev: Indicating, Up: Marking Text 9.2 Emphasizing Text ==================== Usually, Texinfo changes the font to mark words in the text according to the category the words belong to; an example is the '@code' command. Most often, this is the best way to mark words. However, sometimes you will want to emphasize text without indicating a category. Texinfo has two commands to do this. Also, Texinfo has several commands that specify the font in which text will be output. These commands have no effect in Info and only one of them, the '@r' command, has any regular use. * Menu: * @emph @strong:: How to emphasize text in Texinfo. * Smallcaps:: How to use the small caps font. * Fonts:: Various font commands for printed output.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @emph @strong, Next: Smallcaps, Up: Emphasis 9.2.1 '@emph'{TEXT} and '@strong'{TEXT} --------------------------------------- The '@emph' and '@strong' commands are for emphasis; '@strong' is stronger. In printed output, '@emph' produces _italics_ and '@strong' produces *bold*. In the Info output, '@emph' surrounds the text with underscores ('_'), and '@strong' puts asterisks around the text. For example, @strong{Caution:} @samp{rm *} removes @emph{all} normal files. produces the following: *Caution*: 'rm * .[^.]*' removes _all_ normal files. The '@strong' command is seldom used except to mark what is, in effect, a typographical element, such as the word 'Caution' in the preceding example. Caution: Do not use '@strong' with the word 'Note' followed by a space; Info will mistake the combination for a cross reference. Use a phrase such as *Please notice* or *Caution* instead, or the optional argument to '@quotation'--'Note' is allowable there.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Smallcaps, Next: Fonts, Prev: @emph @strong, Up: Emphasis 9.2.2 '@sc'{TEXT}: The Small Caps Font -------------------------------------- Use the '@sc' command to set text in A SMALL CAPS FONT (where possible). Write the text you want to be in small caps between braces in lowercase, like this: Richard @sc{Stallman} commence' GNU. This produces: Richard STALLMAN commence' GNU. As shown here, we recommend reserving '@sc' for special cases where you want typographic small caps; family names are one such, especially in languages other than English, though there are no hard-and-fast rules about such things. TeX typesets any uppercase letters between the braces of an '@sc' command in full-size capitals; only lowercase letters are printed in the small caps font. In the Info output, the argument to '@sc' is printed in all uppercase. In HTML, the argument is uppercased and the output marked with the '<small>' tag to reduce the font size, since HTML cannot easily represent true small caps. Overall, we recommend using standard upper- and lowercase letters wherever possible.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Fonts, Prev: Smallcaps, Up: Emphasis 9.2.3 Fonts for Printing ------------------------ Texinfo provides one command to change the size of the main body font in the TeX output for a document: '@fonttextsize'. It has no effect in other output. It takes a single argument on the remainder of the line, which must be either '10' or '11'. For example: @fonttextsize 10 The effect is to reduce the body font to a 10pt size (the default is 11pt). Fonts for other elements, such as sections and chapters, are reduced accordingly. This should only be used in conjunction with '@smallbook' (*note @smallbook::) or similar, since 10pt fonts on standard paper (8.5x11 or A4) are too small. One reason to use this command is to save pages, and hence printing cost, for physical books. Texinfo does not at present have commands to switch the font family to use, or more general size-changing commands. Texinfo also provides a number of font commands that specify font changes in the printed manual and (where possible) in the HTML output. They have no effect in Info. All the commands apply to a following argument surrounded by braces. '@b' selects bold face; '@i' selects an italic font; '@r' selects a roman font, which is the usual font in which text is printed. It may or may not be seriffed. '@sansserif' selects a sans serif font; '@slanted' selects a slanted font; '@t' selects the fixed-width, typewriter-style font used by '@code'; (The commands with longer names were invented much later than the others, at which time it did not seem desirable to use very short names for such infrequently needed features.) The '@r' command can be useful in example-like environments, to write comments in the standard roman font instead of the fixed-width font. This looks better in printed output, and produces a '<lineannotation>' tag in Docbook output. For example, @lisp (+ 2 2) ; @r{Add two plus two.} @end lisp produces (+ 2 2) ; Add two plus two. The '@t' command can occasionally be useful to produce output in a typewriter font where that is supported (e.g., HTML and PDF), but no distinction is needed in Info or plain text: '@t{foo}' produces foo, cf. '@code{foo}' producing 'foo'. For example, we use '@t' in the '@node' commands for this manual to specify the Texinfo command names, because the quotes which '@code' outputs look extraneous in that particular context. In general, the other font commands are unlikely to be useful; they exist primarily to make it possible to document the functionality of specific font effects, such as in TeX and related packages.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Quotations and Examples, Next: Lists and Tables, Prev: Marking Text, Up: Top 10 Quotations and Examples ************************** Quotations and examples are blocks of text consisting of one or more whole paragraphs that are set off from the bulk of the text and treated differently. They are usually indented in the output. In Texinfo, you always begin a quotation or example by writing an @-command at the beginning of a line by itself, and end it by writing an '@end' command that is also at the beginning of a line by itself. For instance, you begin an example by writing '@example' by itself at the beginning of a line and end the example by writing '@end example' on a line by itself, at the beginning of that line, and with only one space between the '@end' and the 'example'. * Menu: * Block Enclosing Commands:: Different constructs for different purposes. * @quotation:: Writing a quotation. * @indentedblock:: Block of text indented on left. * @example:: Writing an example in a fixed-width font. * @verbatim:: Writing a verbatim example. * @verbatiminclude:: Including a file verbatim. * @lisp:: Illustrating Lisp code. * @small...:: Examples in a smaller font. * @display:: Writing an example in the current font. * @format:: Writing an example without narrowed margins. * @exdent:: Undo indentation on a line. * @flushleft @flushright:: Pushing text flush left or flush right. * @raggedright:: Avoiding justification on the right. * @noindent:: Preventing paragraph indentation. * @indent:: Forcing paragraph indentation. * @cartouche:: Drawing rounded rectangles around text.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Block Enclosing Commands, Next: @quotation, Up: Quotations and Examples 10.1 Block Enclosing Commands ============================= Here is a summary of commands that enclose blocks of text, also known as "environments". They're explained further in the following sections. '@quotation' Indicate text that is quoted. The text is filled, indented (from both margins), and printed in a roman font by default. '@indentedblock' Like '@quotation', but the text is indented only on the left. '@example' Illustrate code, commands, and the like. The text is printed in a fixed-width font, and indented but not filled. '@lisp' Like '@example', but specifically for illustrating Lisp code. The text is printed in a fixed-width font, and indented but not filled. '@verbatim' Mark a piece of text that is to be printed verbatim; no character substitutions are made and all commands are ignored, until the next '@end verbatim'. The text is printed in a fixed-width font, and not indented or filled. Extra spaces and blank lines are significant, and tabs are expanded. '@display' Display illustrative text. The text is indented but not filled, and no font is selected (so, by default, the font is roman). '@format' Like '@display' (the text is not filled and no font is selected), but the text is not indented. '@smallquotation' '@smallindentedblock' '@smallexample' '@smalllisp' '@smalldisplay' '@smallformat' These '@small...' commands are just like their non-small counterparts, except that they output text in a smaller font size, where possible. '@flushleft' '@flushright' Text is not filled, but is set flush with the left or right margin, respectively. '@raggedright' Text is filled, but only justified on the left, leaving the right margin ragged. '@cartouche' Highlight text, often an example or quotation, by drawing a box with rounded corners around it. The '@exdent' command is used within the above constructs to undo the indentation of a line. The '@noindent' command may be used after one of the above constructs (or at the beginning of any paragraph) to prevent the following text from being indented as a new paragraph.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @quotation, Next: @indentedblock, Prev: Block Enclosing Commands, Up: Quotations and Examples 10.2 '@quotation': Block Quotations =================================== The text of a quotation is processed like normal text (regular font, text is filled) except that: * both the left and right margins are closer to the center of the page, so the whole of the quotation is indented; * the first lines of paragraphs are indented no more than other lines; and * an '@author' command may be given to specify the author of the quotation. This is an example of text written between an '@quotation' command and an '@end quotation' command. An '@quotation' command is most often used to indicate text that is excerpted from another (real or hypothetical) printed work. Write an '@quotation' command as text on a line by itself. This line will disappear from the output. Mark the end of the quotation with a line beginning with and containing only '@end quotation'. The '@end quotation' line will likewise disappear from the output. '@quotation' takes one optional argument, given on the remainder of the line. This text, if present, is included at the beginning of the quotation in bold or otherwise emphasized, and followed with a ':'. For example: @quotation Note This is a foo. @end quotation produces Note: This is a foo. If the '@quotation' argument is one of these English words (case-insensitive): Caution Important Note Tip Warning then the Docbook output uses corresponding special tags ('<note>', etc.) instead of the default '<blockquote>'. HTML output always uses '<blockquote>'. If the author of the quotation is specified in the '@quotation' block with the '@author' command, a line with the author name is displayed after the quotation: @quotation People sometimes ask me if it is a sin in the Church of Emacs to use vi. Using a free version of vi is not a sin; it is a penance. So happy hacking. @author Richard Stallman @end quotation produces People sometimes ask me if it is a sin in the Church of Emacs to use vi. Using a free version of vi is not a sin; it is a penance. So happy hacking. -- _Richard Stallman_ Texinfo also provides a command '@smallquotation', which is just like '@quotation' but uses a smaller font size where possible. *Note @small...::.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @indentedblock, Next: @example, Prev: @quotation, Up: Quotations and Examples 10.3 '@indentedblock': Indented text blocks =========================================== The '@indentedblock' environment is similar to '@quotation', except that text is only indented on the left (and there is no optional argument for an author). Thus, the text font remains unchanged, and text is gathered and filled as usual, but the left margin is increased. For example: This is an example of text written between an '@indentedblock' command and an '@end indentedblock' command. The '@indentedblock' environment can contain any text or other commands desired. This is written in the Texinfo source as: @indentedblock This is an example ... @end indentedblock Texinfo also provides a command '@smallindentedblock', which is just like '@indentedblock' but uses a smaller font size where possible. *Note @small...::.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @example, Next: @verbatim, Prev: @indentedblock, Up: Quotations and Examples 10.4 '@example': Example Text ============================= The '@example' environment is used to indicate an example that is not part of the running text, such as computer input or output. Write an '@example' command at the beginning of a line by itself. Mark the end of the example with an '@end example' command, also written at the beginning of a line by itself. An '@example' environment has the following characteristics: * Each line in the input file is a line in the output; that is, the source text is not filled as it normally is. * Extra spaces and blank lines are significant. * The output is indented. * The output uses a fixed-width font. * Texinfo commands _are_ expanded; if you want the output to be the input verbatim, use the '@verbatim' environment instead (*note @verbatim::). For example, @example cp foo @var{dest1}; \ cp foo @var{dest2} @end example produces cp foo DEST1; \ cp foo DEST2 The lines containing '@example' and '@end example' will disappear from the output. To make the output look good, you should put a blank line before the '@example' and another blank line after the '@end example'. Blank lines inside the beginning '@example' and the ending '@end example', on the other hand, do appear in the output. Caution: Do not use tabs in the lines of an example! (Or anywhere else in Texinfo, except in verbatim environments.) TeX treats tabs as single spaces, and that is not what they look like. In Emacs, you can use 'M-x untabify' to convert tabs in a region to multiple spaces. Examples are often, logically speaking, "in the middle" of a paragraph, and the text that continues afterwards should not be indented, as in the example above. The '@noindent' command prevents a piece of text from being indented as if it were a new paragraph (*note @noindent::. If you want to embed code fragments within sentences, instead of displaying them, use the '@code' command or its relatives (*note @code::). If you wish to write a "comment" on a line of an example in the normal roman font, you can use the '@r' command (*note Fonts::).  File: texinfo.info, Node: @verbatim, Next: @verbatiminclude, Prev: @example, Up: Quotations and Examples 10.5 '@verbatim': Literal Text ============================== Use the '@verbatim' environment for printing of text that may contain special characters or commands that should not be interpreted, such as computer input or output ('@example' interprets its text as regular Texinfo commands). This is especially useful for including automatically generated files in a Texinfo manual. In general, the output will be just the same as the input. No character substitutions are made, e.g., all spaces and blank lines are significant, including tabs. In the printed manual, the text is typeset in a fixed-width font, and not indented or filled. Write an '@verbatim' command at the beginning of a line by itself. This line will disappear from the output. Mark the end of the verbatim block with an '@end verbatim' command, also written at the beginning of a line by itself. The '@end verbatim' will also disappear from the output. For example: @verbatim { <TAB>@command with strange characters: @'e expand<TAB>me } @end verbatim This produces: { @command with strange characters: @'e expand me } Since the lines containing '@verbatim' and '@end verbatim' produce no output, typically you should put a blank line before the '@verbatim' and another blank line after the '@end verbatim'. Blank lines between the beginning '@verbatim' and the ending '@end verbatim' will appear in the output. You can get a "small" verbatim by enclosing the '@verbatim' in an '@smallformat' environment, as shown here: @smallformat @verbatim ... still verbatim, but in a smaller font ... @end verbatim @end smallformat Finally, a word of warning: it is not reliable to use '@verbatim' inside other Texinfo constructs.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @verbatiminclude, Next: @lisp, Prev: @verbatim, Up: Quotations and Examples 10.6 '@verbatiminclude' FILE: Include a File Verbatim ===================================================== You can include the exact contents of a file in the document with the '@verbatiminclude' command: @verbatiminclude FILENAME The contents of FILENAME is printed in a verbatim environment (*note @verbatim::). Generally, the file is printed exactly as it is, with all special characters and white space retained. No indentation is added; if you want indentation, enclose the '@verbatiminclude' within '@example' (*note @example::). The name of the file is taken literally, with a single exception: '@value{VAR}' references are expanded. This makes it possible to include files in other directories within a distribution, for instance: @verbatiminclude @value{top_srcdir}/NEWS (You still have to get 'top_srcdir' defined in the first place.) For a method on printing the file contents in a smaller font size, see the end of the previous section on '@verbatim'.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @lisp, Next: @small..., Prev: @verbatiminclude, Up: Quotations and Examples 10.7 '@lisp': Marking a Lisp Example ==================================== The '@lisp' command is used for Lisp code. It is synonymous with the '@example' command. This is an example of text written between an @lisp command and an @end lisp command. Use '@lisp' instead of '@example' to preserve information regarding the nature of the example. This is useful, for example, if you write a function that evaluates only and all the Lisp code in a Texinfo file. Then you can use the Texinfo file as a Lisp library.(1) Mark the end of '@lisp' with '@end lisp' on a line by itself. ---------- Footnotes ---------- (1) It would be straightforward to extend Texinfo to work in a similar fashion for C, Fortran, or other languages.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @small..., Next: @display, Prev: @lisp, Up: Quotations and Examples 10.8 '@small...' Block Commands =============================== In addition to the regular '@example' and similar commands, Texinfo has "small" example-style commands. These are '@smallquotation', '@smallindentedblock', '@smalldisplay', '@smallexample', '@smallformat', and '@smalllisp'. In Info output, the '@small...' commands are equivalent to their non-small companion commands. In TeX, however, the '@small...' commands typeset text in a smaller font than the non-small example commands. Thus, for instance, code examples can contain longer lines and still fit on a page without needing to be rewritten. A smaller font size is also requested in HTML output, and (as usual) retained in the Texinfo XML transliteration. Mark the end of an '@small...' block with a corresponding '@end small...'. For example, pair '@smallexample' with '@end smallexample'. Here is an example of the font used by the '@smallexample' command (in Info, the output will be the same as usual): ... to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things. The '@small...' commands use the same font style as their normal counterparts: '@smallexample' and '@smalllisp' use a fixed-width font, and everything else uses the regular font. They also have the same behavior in other respects--whether filling is done and whether margins are narrowed. As a general rule, a printed document looks better if you use only one of (for instance) '@example' or '@smallexample' consistently within a chapter.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @display, Next: @format, Prev: @small..., Up: Quotations and Examples 10.9 '@display': Examples Using the Text Font ============================================= The '@display' command begins another kind of environment, where the font is left unchanged, not switched to typewriter as with '@example'. Each line of input still produces a line of output, and the output is still indented. This is an example of text written between an '@display' command and an '@end display' command. The '@display' command indents the text, but does not fill it. Texinfo also provides the environment '@smalldisplay', which is like '@display' but uses a smaller font size. *Note @small...::. The '@table' command (*note @table::) is not supported inside '@display'. Since '@display' is line-oriented, it doesn't make sense to use them together. If you want to indent a table, try '@quotation' (*note @quotation::) or '@indentedblock' (*note @indentedblock::).  File: texinfo.info, Node: @format, Next: @exdent, Prev: @display, Up: Quotations and Examples 10.10 '@format': Examples Using the Full Line Width =================================================== The '@format' command is similar to '@display', except it leaves the text unindented. Like '@display', it does not select the fixed-width font. This is an example of text written between an '@format' command and an '@end format' command. As you can see from this example, the '@format' command does not fill the text. Texinfo also provides the environment '@smallformat', which is like '@format' but uses a smaller font size. *Note @small...::.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @exdent, Next: @flushleft @flushright, Prev: @format, Up: Quotations and Examples 10.11 '@exdent': Undoing a Line's Indentation ============================================= The '@exdent' command removes any indentation a line might have. The command is written at the beginning of a line and applies only to the text that follows the command that is on the same line. Do not use braces around the text. In a printed manual, the text on an '@exdent' line is printed in the roman font. '@exdent' is usually used within examples. Thus, @example This line follows an @@example command. @exdent This line is exdented. This line follows the exdented line. The @@end example comes on the next line. @end example produces This line follows an @example command. This line is exdented. This line follows the exdented line. The @end example comes on the next line. In practice, the '@exdent' command is rarely used. Usually, you un-indent text by ending the example and returning the page to its normal width. '@exdent' has no effect in HTML output.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @flushleft @flushright, Next: @raggedright, Prev: @exdent, Up: Quotations and Examples 10.12 '@flushleft' and '@flushright' ==================================== The '@flushleft' and '@flushright' commands line up the ends of lines on the left and right margins of a page, but do not fill the text. The commands are written on lines of their own, without braces. The '@flushleft' and '@flushright' commands are ended by '@end flushleft' and '@end flushright' commands on lines of their own. For example, @flushleft This text is written flushleft. @end flushleft produces This text is written flushleft. '@flushright' produces the type of indentation often used in the return address of letters. For example, @flushright Here is an example of text written flushright. The @code{@flushright} command right justifies every line but leaves the left end ragged. @end flushright produces Here is an example of text written flushright. The '@flushright' command right justifies every line but leaves the left end ragged.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @raggedright, Next: @noindent, Prev: @flushleft @flushright, Up: Quotations and Examples 10.13 '@raggedright': Ragged Right Text ======================================= The '@raggedright' fills text as usual, but the text is only justified on the left; the right margin is ragged. The command is written on a line of its own, without braces. The '@raggedright' command is ended by '@end raggedright' on a line of its own. This command has no effect in Info and HTML output, where text is always set ragged right. The '@raggedright' command can be useful with paragraphs containing lists of commands with long names, when it is known in advance that justifying the text on both margins will make the paragraph look bad. An example (from elsewhere in this manual): @raggedright Commands for double and single angle quotation marks: @code{@@guillemetleft@{@}}, @code{@@guillemetright@{@}}, @code{@@guillemotleft@{@}}, @code{@@guillemotright@{@}}, @code{@@guilsinglleft@{@}}, @code{@@guilsinglright@{@}}. @end raggedright produces Commands for double and single angle quotation marks: '@guillemetleft{}', '@guillemetright{}', '@guillemotleft{}', '@guillemotright{}', '@guilsinglleft{}', '@guilsinglright{}'.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @noindent, Next: @indent, Prev: @raggedright, Up: Quotations and Examples 10.14 '@noindent': Omitting Indentation ======================================= An example or other inclusion can break a paragraph into segments. Ordinarily, the formatters indent text that follows an example as a new paragraph. You can prevent this on a case-by-case basis by writing '@noindent' at the beginning of a line, preceding the continuation text. You can also disable indentation for all paragraphs globally with '@paragraphindent' (*note @paragraphindent::). Here is an example showing how to eliminate the normal indentation of the text after an '@example', a common situation: @example This is an example @end example @noindent This line is not indented. As you can see, the beginning of the line is fully flush left with the line that follows after it. produces: This is an example This line is not indented. As you can see, the beginning of the line is fully flush left with the line that follows after it. The standard usage of '@indent' is just as above: at the beginning of what would otherwise be a paragraph, to eliminate the indentation that normally happens there. It can either be followed by text or be on a line by itself. There is no reason to use it in other contexts, such as in the middle of a paragraph or inside an environment (*note Quotations and Examples::). You can control the number of blank lines in the Info file output by adjusting the input as desired: a line containing just '@noindent' does not generate a blank line, and neither does an '@end' line for an environment. Do not put braces after an '@noindent' command; they are not used, since '@noindent' is a command used outside of paragraphs (*note Command Syntax::).  File: texinfo.info, Node: @indent, Next: @cartouche, Prev: @noindent, Up: Quotations and Examples 10.15 '@indent': Forcing Indentation ==================================== To complement the '@noindent' command (see the previous section), Texinfo provides the '@indent' command to force a paragraph to be indented. For instance, this paragraph (the first in this section) is indented using an '@indent' command. And indeed, the first paragraph of a section is the most likely place to use '@indent', to override the normal behavior of no indentation there (*note @paragraphindent::). It can either be followed by text or be on a line by itself. As a special case, when '@indent' is used in an environment where text is not filled, it produces a paragraph indentation space in the TeX output. (These environments are where a line of input produces a line of output, such as '@example' and '@display'; for a summary of all environments, *note Block Enclosing Commands::.) Do not put braces after an '@indent' command; they are not used, since '@indent' is a command used outside of paragraphs (*note Command Syntax::).  File: texinfo.info, Node: @cartouche, Prev: @indent, Up: Quotations and Examples 10.16 '@cartouche': Rounded Rectangles ====================================== In a printed manual, the '@cartouche' command draws a box with rounded corners around its contents. In HTML, a normal rectangle is drawn. '@cartouche' has no effect in Info output. You can use this command to further highlight an example or quotation. For instance, you could write a manual in which one type of example is surrounded by a cartouche for emphasis. For example, @cartouche @example % pwd /usr/local/share/emacs @end example @end cartouche surrounds the two-line example with a box with rounded corners, in the printed manual. The output from the example looks like this (if you're reading this in Info, you'll see the '@cartouche' had no effect): % pwd /usr/local/info '@cartouche' also implies '@group' (*note @group::).  File: texinfo.info, Node: Lists and Tables, Next: Special Displays, Prev: Quotations and Examples, Up: Top 11 Lists and Tables ******************* Texinfo has several ways of making lists and tables. Lists can be bulleted or numbered; two-column tables can highlight the items in the first column; multi-column tables are also supported. * Menu: * Introducing Lists:: Texinfo formats lists for you. * @itemize:: How to construct a simple list. * @enumerate:: How to construct a numbered list. * Two-column Tables:: How to construct a two-column table. * Multi-column Tables:: How to construct generalized tables.  File: texinfo.info, Node: Introducing Lists, Next: @itemize, Up: Lists and Tables 11.1 Introducing Lists ====================== Texinfo automatically indents the text in lists or tables, and numbers an enumerated list. This last feature is useful if you modify the list, since you do not need to renumber it yourself. Numbered lists and tables begin with the appropriate @-command at the beginning of a line, and end with the corresponding '@end' command on a line by itself. The table and itemized-list commands also require that you write formatting information on the same line as the beginning @-command. Begin an enumerated list, for example, with an '@enumerate' command and end the list with an '@end enumerate' command. Begin an itemized list with an '@itemize' command, followed on the same line by a formatting command such as '@bullet', and end the list with an '@end itemize' command. Precede each element of a list with an '@item' or '@itemx' command. Here is an itemized list of the different kinds of table and lists: * Itemized lists with and without bullets. * Enumerated lists, using numbers or letters. * Two-column tables with highlighting. Here is an enumerated list with the same items: 1. Itemized lists with and without bullets. 2. Enumerated lists, using numbers or letters. 3. Two-column tables with highlighting. And here is a two-column table with the same items and their @-commands: '@itemize' Itemized lists with and without bullets. '@enumerate' Enumerated lists, using numbers or letters. '@table' '@ftable' '@vtable' Two-column tables, optionally with indexing.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @itemize, Next: @enumerate, Prev: Introducing Lists, Up: Lists and Tables 11.2 '@itemize': Making an Itemized List ======================================== The '@itemize' command produces a sequence of "items", each starting with a bullet or other mark inside the left margin, and generally indented. Begin an itemized list by writing '@itemize' at the beginning of a line. Follow the command, on the same line, with a character or a Texinfo command that generates a mark. Usually, you will use '@bullet' after '@itemize', but you can use '@minus', or any command or character that results in a single character in the Info file. (When you write the mark command such as '@bullet' after an '@itemize' command, you may omit the '{}'.) If you don't specify a mark command, the default is '@bullet'. If you don't want any mark at all, but still want logical items, use '@w{}' (in this case the braces are required). After the '@itemize', write your items, each starting with '@item'. Text can follow on the same line as the '@item'. The text of an item can continue for more than one paragraph. There should be at least one '@item' inside the '@itemize' environment. If none are present, 'makeinfo' gives a warning. If you just want indented text and not a list of items, use '@indentedblock'; *note @indentedblock::. Index entries and comments that are given before an '@item' including the first, are automatically moved (internally) to after the '@item', so the output is as expected. Historically this has been a common practice. Usually, you should put a blank line between items. This puts a blank line in the Info file. (TeX inserts the proper vertical space in any case.) Except when the entries are very brief, these blank lines make the list look better. Here is an example of the use of '@itemize', followed by the output it produces. '@bullet' produces an '*' in Info and a round dot in other output formats. @itemize @bullet @item Some text for foo. @item Some text for bar. @end itemize This produces: * Some text for foo. * Some text for bar. Itemized lists may be embedded within other itemized lists. Here is a list marked with dashes embedded in a list marked with bullets: @itemize @bullet @item First item. @itemize @minus @item Inner item. @item Second inner item. @end itemize @item Second outer item. @end itemize This produces: * First item. - Inner item. - Second inner item. * Second outer item.  File: texinfo.info, Node: @enumerate, Next: Two-column Tables, Prev: @itemize, Up: Lists and Tables 11.3 '@enumerate': Making a Numbered or Lettered List ===================================================== '@enumerate' is like '@itemize' (*note @itemize::), except that the labels on the items are successive integers or letters instead of bullets. Write the '@enumerate' command at the beginning of a line. The command does not require an argument, but accepts either a number or a letter as an option. Without an argument, '@enumerate' starts the list with the number '1'. With a numeric argument, such as '3', the command starts the list with that number. With an upper- or lowercase letter, such as 'a' or 'A', the command starts the list with that letter. Write the text of the enumerated list in the same way as an itemized list: write a line starting with '@item' at the beginning of each item in the enumeration. It is ok to have text following the '@item', and the text for an item can continue for several paragraphs. You should put a blank line between entries in the list. This generally makes it easier to read the Info file. Here is an example of '@enumerate' without an argument: @enumerate @item Underlying causes. @item Proximate causes. @end enumerate This produces: 1. Underlying causes. 2. Proximate causes. Here is an example with an argument of '3': @enumerate 3 @item Predisposing causes. @item Precipitating causes. @item Perpetuating causes. @end enumerate This produces: 3. Predisposing causes. 4. Precipitating causes. 5. Perpetuating causes. Here is a brief summary of the alternatives. The summary is constructed using '@enumerate' with an argument of 'a'. a. '@enumerate' Without an argument, produce a numbered list, starting with the number 1. b. '@enumerate POSITIVE-INTEGER' With a (positive) numeric argument, start a numbered list with that number. You can use this to continue a list that you interrupted with other text. c. '@enumerate UPPER-CASE-LETTER' With an uppercase letter as argument, start a list in which each item is marked by a letter, beginning with that uppercase letter. d. '@enumerate LOWER-CASE-LETTER' With a lowercase letter as argument, start a list in which each item is marked by a letter, beginning with that lowercase letter. You can also nest enumerated lists, as in an outline.