@code{sample-code}
@kbd{keyboard-characters}
@key{key-name}
@samp{text}
@verb{<char>text<char>}
@var{metasyntactic-variable}
@env{environment-variable}
@file{file-name}
@command{command-name}
@option{option-name}
@dfn{term}
@cite{reference}
@acronym{acronym}
@url{uniform-resource-locator}
@email{email-address[, displayed-text]}
@quotation
@example: Example Text
@verbatim: Literal Text
@verbatiminclude file: Include a File Verbatim
@lisp: Marking a Lisp Example
@small... Block Commands
@display and @smalldisplay
@format and @smallformat
@exdent: Undoing a Line's Indentation
@flushleft and @flushright
@noindent: Omitting Indentation
@indent: Forcing Indentation
@cartouche: Rounded Rectangles Around Examples
tex and texindex
texi2dvi
lpr -d
@pagesizes [width][, height]: Custom Page Sizes
Copyright (C) 1988, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 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 1.1 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 freedom to copy and modify this GNU Manual, like GNU software. Copies published by the Free Software Foundation raise funds for GNU development."
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.
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
The programs currently being distributed that relate to Texinfo include
makeinfo, info, texindex, and texinfo.tex.
These programs are free; this means that everyone is free to use
them and free to redistribute them on a free basis. The Texinfo-related
programs are not in the public domain; they are copyrighted and there
are restrictions on their 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 these programs 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 specifically is covered by the GNU Free Documentation License (see GNU Free Documentation License).
Texinfo1 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.
We welcome bug reports and suggestions for any aspect of the Texinfo system, programs, documentation, installation, anything. Please email them to bug-texinfo@gnu.org. You can get the latest version of Texinfo from ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/texinfo/ and its mirrors worldwide.
For bug reports, please include enough information for the maintainers to reproduce the problem. Generally speaking, that means:
configure.
When in doubt whether something is needed or not, include it. It's better to include too much than to leave out something important.
Patches are most welcome; if possible, please make them with
diff -c (see Overview) and include ChangeLog entries (see Change Log).
When sending patches, if possible please do not encode or split them in any way; it's much easier to deal with one plain text message, however large, than many small ones. GNU shar is a convenient way of packaging multiple and/or binary files for email.
Using Texinfo, you can create a printed document with the normal features of a book, including chapters, sections, cross references, and indices. From the same Texinfo source file, you can create a menu-driven, online Info file with nodes, menus, cross references, and indices. You can also create from that same source file an HTML output file suitable for use with a web browser, or an XML file. The GNU Emacs Manual is a good example of a Texinfo file, as is this manual.
To make a printed document, you process a Texinfo source file with the TeX typesetting program (but the Texinfo language is very different from and much stricter than TeX's usual languages, plain TeX and LaTeX). This creates a DVI file that you can typeset and print as a book or report (see Hardcopy).
To output an Info file, process your Texinfo source with the
makeinfo utility. You can install the result in your Info tree
(see Installing an Info File).
To output an HTML file, run makeinfo --html on your Texinfo
source. You can (for example) install the result on a web site.
To output an XML file, run makeinfo --xml on your Texinfo source.
To output DocBook (a particular form of XML), run makeinfo
--docbook. If you want to convert from Docbook to Texinfo,
please see http://docbook2X.sourceforge.net/.
TeX works with virtually all printers; Info works with virtually all computer terminals; the HTML output works with virtually all web browsers. Thus Texinfo 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 typesetting and formatting programs what to do. You may
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.
(See Texinfo Mode.)
Before writing a Texinfo source file, you should learn about nodes, menus, cross references, and the rest, for example by reading this manual.
You can use Texinfo to create both online help and printed manuals; moreover, Texinfo is freely redistributable. For these reasons, Texinfo is the official documentation format of the GNU project. More information is available at the GNU documentation web page.
Here is a brief overview of the output formats currently supported by Texinfo.
makeinfo.) This format is a plain text
transliteration of the Texinfo source. It uses control characters to
separate nodes and provide other navigational information. See the
next section (see Info Files) for more details on this format.
The Emacs Info subsystem (see Getting Started),
and the standalone info program (see info standalone), among others, can read these
files. See Creating and Installing Info Files.
makeinfo --no-headers.) This is almost the
same as Info output, except the navigational control characters are
omitted.
makeinfo --html.) This is the Hyper Text
Markup Language that 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; makeinfo tries to use a subset
of the language that can be interpreted by any common browser. For
details of the HTML language and much related information, see
http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/. See Generating HTML.
texi2dvi.) This DeVice Independent binary
format is output by the TeX typesetting program
(http://tug.org). It is then read by a DVI `driver', which
writes the actual device-specific commands that can be viewed or
printed, notably Dvips for translation to PostScript (see dvips invocation) and Xdvi for viewing on an X display
(http://sourceforge.net/projects/xdvi/). See Hardcopy.
texi2dvi --pdf.) This format, based on
PostScript, was developed by Adobe Systems for document interchange.
It is intended to be platform-independent and easily viewable, among
other design goals; for a discussion, see
http://tug.org/tugboat/Articles/tb22-3/tb72beebeI.pdf. Texinfo
uses the pdftex program, a variant of TeX, to output pdf;
see http://tug.org/applications/pdftex. See PDF Output.
makeinfo --xml.) XML is a generic syntax
specification usable for any sort of content (see, for example,
http://www.w3.org/XML/). The makeinfo xml output,
unlike all the formats above, interprets very little of the Texinfo
source. Rather, it merely translates the Texinfo markup commands into
XML syntax, for processing by further XML tools. The particular
syntax output is defined in the file texinfo.dtd included in
the Texinfo source distribution.
makeinfo --docbook.) This is an XML format
of long standing used primarily for technical documentation. See
http://www.docbook.org/.
From time to time, proposals are made to generate traditional Unix man pages from Texinfo source. However, because man pages have a very strict conventional format, generating 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 just write the man page directly.
Man pages still have their place, and if you wish to support them, you
may find the program help2man to be useful; it generates a
traditional man page from the --help output of a program. In
fact, this is currently used to generate man pages for the programs in
the Texinfo distribution. It is GNU software written by Brendan
O'Dea, available from ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/help2man/.
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. But please do not write a separate translator texi2foo for
your favorite format foo! That is the hard way to do the job, and makes
extra work in subsequent maintenance, since the Texinfo language is
continually being enhanced and updated. Instead, the best approach is
modify makeinfo to generate the new format.
An Info file is a Texinfo file formatted so that the Info documentation
reading program can operate on it. (makeinfo
and texinfo-format-buffer are two commands that convert a Texinfo file
into an Info file.)
Info files are divided into pieces called nodes, each of which contains the discussion of one topic. Each node has a name, and contains both text for the user to read and pointers to other nodes, which are identified by their names. The Info program displays one node at a time, and provides commands with which the user can move to other related nodes.
Each node of an Info file may have any number of child nodes that describe subtopics of the node's topic. The names of child nodes are listed in a menu within the parent node; this allows you to use certain Info commands to move to one of the child nodes. Generally, an Info file is organized like a book. If a node is at the logical level of a chapter, its child nodes are at the level of sections; likewise, the child nodes of sections are at the level of subsections.
All the children of any one parent are linked together in a bidirectional chain of `Next' and `Previous' pointers. The `Next' pointer provides a link to the next section, and the `Previous' pointer provides a link to the previous section. This means that all the nodes that are at the level of sections within a chapter are linked together. Normally the order in this chain is the same as the order of the children in the parent's menu. 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.2
The book-like structuring of an Info file into nodes that correspond to chapters, sections, and the like is a matter of convention, not a requirement. The `Up', `Previous', and `Next' pointers of a node can point to any other nodes, and a menu can contain any other nodes. Thus, the node structure can be any directed graph. But it is usually more comprehensible to follow a structure that corresponds to the structure of chapters and sections in a printed book or report.
In addition to menus and to `Next', `Previous', and `Up' pointers, Info provides pointers of another kind, called references, that can be sprinkled throughout the text. This is usually the best way to represent links that do not fit a hierarchical structure.
Usually, you will design a document so that its nodes match the structure of chapters and sections in the printed output. But occasionally there are times when this is not right for the material being discussed. Therefore, Texinfo uses separate commands to specify the node structure for the Info file and the section structure for the printed output.
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 (see Top).
If you want to read through an Info file in sequence, as if it were a printed manual, you can hit <SPC> repeatedly, or you get the whole file with the advanced Info command g *. (see Advanced Info commands.)
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 in a URI, you can use the (unofficial) syntax exemplified in the following. This works with Emacs/W3, for example:
info:///usr/info/emacs#Dissociated%20Press
info:emacs#Dissociated%20Press
info://localhost/usr/info/emacs#Dissociated%20Press
The info program itself does not follow URI's of any kind.
A Texinfo file can be formatted and typeset as a printed book or manual. To do this, you need TeX, a powerful, sophisticated typesetting program written by Donald Knuth.3
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.
You can use Texinfo to write a book without ever having the intention of converting it into online information. You can use Texinfo for writing a printed novel, and even to write a printed memo, although this latter application is not recommended since electronic mail is so much easier.
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
ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/texinfo/texinfo.tex.
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). (See Printing "Small" Books. Also, see Printing on A4 Paper.)
By changing the parameters in texinfo.tex, you can change the
size of the printed document. In addition, you can change the style in
which the printed document is formatted; for example, you can change the
sizes and fonts used, the amount of indentation for each paragraph, the
degree to which words are hyphenated, and the like. By changing the
specifications, you can make a book look dignified, old and serious, or
light-hearted, young and cheery.
TeX is freely distributable. It is written in a superset of Pascal called WEB and can be compiled either in Pascal or (by using a conversion program that comes with the TeX distribution) in C. (See TeX Mode, for information about TeX.)
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.
To get a copy of TeX, see How to Obtain TeX.
In a Texinfo file, the commands that tell TeX how to typeset the
printed manual and tell makeinfo and
texinfo-format-buffer how to create an Info file are preceded
by @; 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.
Please note: All the @-commands, with the exception of the
@TeX{} command, must be written entirely in lower case.
The Texinfo @-commands are a strictly limited set of constructs. The strict limits make it possible for Texinfo files to be understood both by TeX and by the code that converts them into Info files. You can display Info files on any terminal that displays alphabetic and numeric characters. Similarly, you can print the output generated by TeX on a wide variety of printers.
Depending on what they do or what arguments4 they take, you need to write @-commands on lines of their own or as part of sentences:
@quotation at the beginning of a line as
the only text on the line. (@quotation begins an indented
environment.)
@chapter at the beginning of a line
followed by the command's arguments, in this case the chapter title, on
the rest of the line. (@chapter creates chapter titles.)
@dots{} wherever you wish but usually
within a sentence. (@dots{} creates dots ...)
@code{sample-code} wherever you
wish (but usually within a sentence) with its argument,
sample-code in this example, between the braces. (@code
marks text as being code.)
@example on a line of its own; write the
body-text on following lines; and write the matching @end
command, @end example in this case, on a line of its own
after the body-text. (@example ... @end example
indents and typesets body-text as an example.) It's usually ok to
indent environment commands like this, but in complicated and
hard-to-define circumstances the extra spaces cause extra space to
appear in the output, so beware.
As a general rule, a command requires braces if it mingles among other
text; but it does not need braces if it starts 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 make it easier to write and read Texinfo files than if all commands followed exactly the same syntax. (For details about @-command syntax, see @-Command Syntax.)
This section describes the general conventions used in all Texinfo documents.
@, { 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
xan @ character in front of it, like this: @@,
@{, and @}.
@noindent to inhibit
paragraph indentation if required (see @noindent).
---, for a dash--like this. In
TeX, a single or double hyphen produces a printed dash that is
shorter than the usual typeset dash. Info reduces three hyphens to two
for display on the screen.
@iftex
and @end iftex commands, that region will appear only in
the printed copy; in that region, you can use certain commands
borrowed from plain TeX that you cannot use in Info. Conversely,
text surrounded by @ifnottex and @end ifnottex will
appear in all output formats except TeX.
Each of the other output formats (html, info,
plaintext, xml) have an analogous pair of commands.
See Conditionals.
Caution: Do not use tab characters in a Texinfo file (except 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. Furthermore,makeinfodoes nothing special with tabs, and thus a tab character in your input file may appear differently in the output, for example, in indented text.To avoid this problem, Texinfo mode causes GNU Emacs to insert multiple spaces when you press the <TAB> key.
Also, you can run
untabifyin Emacs to convert tabs in a region to multiple spaces.
You can write comments in a Texinfo file that will not appear in
either the Info file or the printed manual by using the
@comment command (which may be abbreviated to @c).
Such comments are for the person who revises the Texinfo 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 either the Info file
or the printed manual.
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 in a line beginning with such
a command.
You can write long stretches of text that will not appear in either
the Info file or the printed manual by using 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.
Text enclosed by @ignore or by failing @ifset or
@ifclear conditions is ignored in the sense that it will not
contribute to the formatted output. However, TeX and makeinfo must
still parse the ignored text, in order to understand when to stop
ignoring text from the source file; that means that you may still get
error messages if you have invalid Texinfo commands within ignored text.
By convention, the namea 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 printed manual and an Info file, 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 a Texinfo file with a line like this:
@bye
Here's an explanation:
\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.)
@setfilename line provides a name for the Info file and
tells TeX to open auxiliary files. All text before
@setfilename is ignored!
@settitle line specifies a title for the page headers (or
footers) of the printed manual, and the default document description for
the <head> in HTML format. Strictly speaking, @settitle
is optional--if you don't mind your document being titled `Untitled'.
@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.
Typically, you will not use quite such a spare format, but will 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 lines which surround the @setfilename and
@settitle lines are optional, but you need them in order to
run TeX or Info on just part of the file. (See 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.
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.
@copying command.
@titlepage and @end titlepage commands. The title and
copyright page appear only in the printed manual.
@bye command on a line
of its own.
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.
See Beginning a File, for full documentation on the commands listed here. See 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 Short Sample Texinfo File.
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
A real manual includes more text here, according to the license under which it is distributed. See GNU Sample Texts.
@copying
This is a short example of a complete Texinfo file, version 1.0.
Copyright @copyright{} 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
@end copying
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
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 also include the copying text again for
the benefit of online readers. Since the copying text begins with
a brief description of the manual, no other text is needed in this
case. The @top command itself helps makeinfo
determine the relationships between nodes.
@ifnottex
@node Top
@top Short Sample
@insertcopying
@end ifnottex
@menu
* First Chapter:: The first chapter is the
only chapter in this sample.
* Index:: Complete index.
@end menu
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
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
Here is what the contents of the first chapter of the sample look like:
This is the first chapter.Here is a numbered list.
- This is the first item.
- This is the second item.
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 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. François 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. Special thanks go 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.
A bit of history: 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 strived 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.
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.
Texinfo mode provides special features for working with Texinfo files. You can:
@node lines.
Perhaps the two most helpful features are those for inserting frequently used @-commands and for creating node pointers and menus.
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 p (narrow-to-page) command. (See 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.
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:
@code{} and put the
cursor between the braces.
@dfn{} and put the
cursor between the braces.
@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.)
@item and put the
cursor at the beginning of the next line.
@kbd{} and put the
cursor between the braces.
@node and a comment line
listing the sequence for the `Next',
`Previous', and `Up' nodes.
Leave point after the @node.
@noindent and put the
cursor at the beginning of the next line.
@samp{} and put the
cursor between the braces.
@table followed by a <SPC>
and leave the cursor after the <SPC>.
@var{} and put the
cursor between the braces.
@example and put the
cursor at the beginning of the next line.
{} and put the cursor between the braces.
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.
See The Parts of a Menu.)
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.
You can show the section structure of a Texinfo file by using the
C-c C-s command (texinfo-show-structure). This command
shows the section structure of a Texinfo file by listing 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.
@chapter, @section, and such lines of a
Texinfo file.
*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).
(See 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 p (narrow-to-page) command to narrow to a chapter.
See Pages, for more information
about the page commands.
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 the updating commands, you need to write menus and node pointers by hand, which is a tedious task.
You can use the updating commands to:
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:
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. (See The Top Node and Master Menu, 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:
@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).
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.
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 is often useful to reduce it to as low as 24. You
can set the variable with the M-x edit-options command
(see Editing Variable Values) or with the M-x set-variable command (see Examining and Setting Variables).
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. (See Other Updating Commands, for more information.)
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. (See 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.
In addition to the five major updating commands, Texinfo mode possesses several less frequently used updating commands:
@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
texinfo-insert-node-lines command 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 (see Inserting Frequently Used Commands) inserts titles as descriptions in
menu entries, a different action. However, in both cases, you need to
edit the inserted text.
texinfo-multiple-files-update command is
described in the appendix on @include files.
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.
texinfo-sequential-node-update command
sequentially updates all the nodes in the region.
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:
You can use either the texinfo-format-buffer or the
makeinfo-buffer command to format a whole buffer:
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.
See Creating an Info File, for details about Info formatting.
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 (see 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.
texi2dvi on the buffer. In addition to running TeX on the
buffer, this command automatically creates or updates indices as
needed.
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.)
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.)
See Hardcopy, for a description of the other TeX related
commands, such as tex-show-print-queue.
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.
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 C-c { Insert braces. C-c C-c ] 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.
The texinfo-show-structure command is often used within a
narrowed region.
C-c C-s List all the headings.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 (see Six Parts).
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.
See 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
@insertcopying
@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
...
Texinfo files start with at least three lines that provide Info and
TeX 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, you must
write the @settitle and @setfilename lines between
start-of-header and end-of-header lines. The 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 (see synindex), for
instance, is another command often included in the header. See GNU Sample Texts, for complete sample texts.
Thus, the beginning of a Texinfo file generally looks like this:
\input texinfo @c -*-texinfo-*-
@c %**start of header
@setfilename sample.info
@settitle Sample Manual 1.0
@c %**end of header
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:
\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.
-*-texinfo-*- mode
specification tells Emacs to use Texinfo mode.
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 (see End of Header).
The start- and end-of-header lines allow you to format only part of a Texinfo file for Info or printing. See 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. See Texinfo Mode Printing.
@setfilename: Set the output file name
In order to serve as the primary input file for either makeinfo
or TeX, a Texinfo file must contain a line that looks like this:
@setfilename info-file-name
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; anything on the line after the command is considered
part of the file name, including what would otherwise be a
comment.
The Info formatting commands ignore everything written before the
@setfilename line, which 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, preferably, 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. (See 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 HTML output, makeinfo will replace any extension
with html, or add .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, cross-reference, and other auxiliary files used by Texinfo, and
also reads texinfo.cnf if that file is present on your system
(see Preparing for TeX).
@settitle: Set the document title
In order to be made into a printed manual, a Texinfo file must 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. This tells TeX the title to
use in a header or footer. Do not write anything else on the line;
anything on the line after the command is considered part of the title,
including what would otherwise be a comment.
The @settitle command should precede everything that generates
actual output in TeX.
In the HTML file produced by makeinfo, title also serves
as the document <title> and the default document description in
the <head> part; see documentdescription, for how to change
that.
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 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 a @subtitle so it would
be omitted from the @title. (See titlepage.)
Conventionally, when TeX formats a Texinfo file for double-sided
output, the title is printed in the left-hand (even-numbered) page
headings and the current chapter title is printed in the right-hand
(odd-numbered) page headings. (TeX learns the title of each chapter
from each @chapter command.) By default, no page footer is
printed.
Even if you are printing in a single-sided style, TeX looks for an
@settitle command line, in case you include the manual title
in the heading.
TeX prints page headings only for that text that comes after the
@end titlepage command in the Texinfo file, or that comes
after an @headings command that turns on headings.
(See The @headings Command, for more
information.)
You may, if you wish, create your own, customized headings and footings. See Headings, for a detailed discussion of this.
Follow the header lines with an end-of-header line, which is a Texinfo comment that looks like this:
@c %**end of header
See Start of Header.
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.
@copying: Declare Copying Permissions
The @copying command should be given very early in the document;
the recommended location is right after the header material
(see 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.
See GNU Sample Texts, for the full text to be used in GNU manuals. See GNU Free Documentation License, for the license itself under which GNU and other free manuals are distributed. You need to include the license as an appendix to your document.
The text of @copying is output as a comment at the beginning of
Info, HTML, and XML 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
in output formats that support this (print and HTML). In the other
formats (Info and plain text), it generates (C). The copyright
notice itself has the following legally defined sequence:
Copyright © 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). Ranges are not allowed; each year must 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.
See Copyright Notices, for additional information.
@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 (see Copyright).
We also strongly recommend using @insertcopying in the Top node
of your manual (see The Top Node), although it is not required
legally. Here's why:
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 *). Therefore, an explicit @insertcopying
in the Top node makes it apparent to readers that the manual is free.
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). And
therefore again, the @insertcopying in the Top node is valuable
because it makes the copying permissions visible and thus promotes
freedom.
The permissions text defined by @copying also appears
automatically at the beginning of the XML output file.
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 the printed manual, but not in the Info file. Because of this, it is possible to use several slightly obscure TeX typesetting commands that cannot be used in an Info file. In addition, this part of the beginning of a Texinfo file contains the text of the copying permissions that appears in the printed manual.
You may wish to include titlepage-like information for plain text
output. Simply place any such leading material between
@ifplaintext and @end ifplaintext; makeinfo
includes this when writing plain text (--no-headers), along with
an @insertcopying.
@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. (See Page Headings, for details about how to
generate page headings.) 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
(see 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 number5 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 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 extremely simple applications, and for the bastard title page in
traditional book front matter, 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.
@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 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. (See @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.
@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 @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. Only a single line is
allowed; the @* command may not be used to break the title into
two lines. To handle very long titles, you may find it profitable to
use both @title and @titlefont; see the final example in
this section.
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 underlined with a
black rule that is thinner than the rule that underlines the title.
(The black rule only occurs if the @author command line is
followed by an @page command line.)
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 two (or more)
@author commands:
@author Jane Smith
@author John Doe
(Only the bottom name is underlined with a black rule.)
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
You may also combine the @titlefont method described in the
previous section and @title method described in this one. This
may be useful if you have a very long title. Here is a real-life example:
@titlepage
@titlefont{GNU Software}
@sp 1
@title for MS-Windows and MS-DOS
@subtitle Edition @value{e} for Release @value{cde}
@author by Daniel Hagerty, Melissa Weisshaus
@author and Eli Zaretskii
(The use of @value here is explained in value Example.
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 incantantion after @page:
@vskip 0pt plus 1filll
This is a TeX command that is not supported by the Info formatting
commands. The @vskip command inserts whitespace. 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 ls in the word
filll; this is correct.
To insert the copyright text itself, write @insertcopying
next (see 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
The @end titlepage command must be written on a line by itself.
It not only marks the end of the title and copyright pages, but also
causes TeX to start generating page headings and page numbers.
To repeat what is said elsewhere, Texinfo has two standard page heading formats, one for documents which are printed on one side of each sheet of paper (single-sided printing), and the other for documents which are printed on both sides of each sheet (double-sided printing). You can specify these formats in different ways:
@setchapternewpage command
before the title page commands, and then have the @end
titlepage command start generating page headings in the manner desired.
(See setchapternewpage.)
@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. See The @headings Command, for more information.)
Most documents are formatted with the standard single-sided or
double-sided format, using @setchapternewpage odd for
double-sided printing and no @setchapternewpage command for
single-sided printing.
@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 pre-defined 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
@headings single
@headings double
@headings on
@headings on and @headings double, are
synonymous.
@headings singleafter
@headings doubleafter
single or double headings, respectively, after the
current page is output.
@headings on
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. See Page Headings, for more information.
The @chapter, @section, and other structuring commands
(see 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
@majorheading,
@chapheading, and @heading commands do not appear in
the table of contents.
@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
are best placed near the beginning of the file, after the @end
titlepage (see titlepage). 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
--no-headers), unless makeinfo is writing its output to standard
output.
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
(unless, erroneously, no @end titlepage is ever encountered).
You need to include the @set...contentsaftertitlepage
commands early in the document (just after @setfilename, for
example). We recommend using texi2dvi (see Format with texi2dvi) to specify this without altering the source file at all. For
example:
texi2dvi --texinfo=@setcontentsaftertitlepage foo.texi
The `Top' node is the node in which a reader enters an Info manual. As
such, it should begin with the @insertcopying command
(see Document Permissions) to provide a brief description of the
manual (including the version number) and copying permissions, 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 also conventional to write an @top sectioning command line
containing the title of the document immediately after the @node
Top line (see The @top Sectioning 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 ifnottext, but it is simplest to do
so. See Conditionally Visible Text.)
Here is an example of a Top node.
@ifnottex
@node Top
@top Sample Title
@insertcopying
Additional general information.
@menu
* First Chapter::
* Second Chapter::
...
* Index::
@end menu
A master menu is a detailed main menu listing all the nodes in a file.
A master menu is enclosed in @menu and @end menu
commands and does not appear in the printed document.
Generally, a master menu is divided into parts.
@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. (See 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::
* Concept Index::
@detailmenu
--- The Detailed Node Listing ---
Overview of Texinfo
* Reporting Bugs:: ...
...
Beginning a Texinfo File
* Sample Beginning:: ...
...
@end detailmenu
@end menu
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.
@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
(see 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.
@setchapternewpage:
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
@setchapternewpage on
@setchapternewpage odd
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.
See The @headings Command.
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.
Since an Info file does not have pages, the @setchapternewpage
command has no effect on it.
We recommend not including any @setchapternewpage command in
your manual sources at all, since the desired output is not intrinsic to
the document. For a particular hard copy run, if you don't want the
default option (no blank pages, same headers on all pages) use the
--texinfo option to texi2dvi to specify the output
you want.
@paragraphindent: Paragraph Indenting
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
none
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. See 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.
See Refilling Paragraphs, for further information.
@firstparagraphindent: Indentation 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
makeinfo if
@paragraphindent asis is in effect.
insert
@paragraphindent command
(see paragraphindent).
For HTML and XML output, the @firstparagraphindent setting is
ignored.
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. See Start of Header.
@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
The default value of indent is 5. @exampleindent is
ignored for HTML output.
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. See Start of Header.
If the Texinfo file has a section containing the "General Public License" and the distribution information and a warranty disclaimer for the software that is documented, we recommend placing this right after the `Top' node. The General Public License is very important to Project GNU software. It ensures that you and others will continue to have a right to use and share the software.
The copying and distribution information and the disclaimer are followed by an introduction or else by the first chapter of the manual.
Although an introduction is not a required part of a Texinfo file, it is very helpful. Ideally, it should state clearly and concisely what the file is about and who would be interested in reading it. In general, an introduction would follow the licensing and distribution information, although sometimes people put it earlier in the document.
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
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 (see 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, each with a two-letter abbreviation, as illustrated in the following table. However, you may merge indices (see Combining Indices) or define your own indices (see New Indices).
Here are the predefined indices, their abbreviations, and the corresponding index entry commands:
cp
@cindex)
fn
@findex)
vr
@index)
ky
@kindex)
pg
@pindex)
tp
@tindex)
The @printindex command takes a two-letter index abbreviation,
reads the corresponding sorted index file and formats it appropriately
into an index.
The @printindex command does not generate a chapter heading for
the index. 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
@unnumbered command with an @node line.
For example:
@node Variable Index
@unnumbered Variable Index
@printindex vr
@node Concept Index
@unnumbered Concept Index
@printindex cp
We recommend placing the concept index last, since that makes it easiest to find. We also recommend having a single index whenever possible, since then readers have only one place to look (see Combining Indices).
@bye File EndingAn @bye command terminates Texinfo processing. None of the
formatters read anything following @bye. The @bye
command should be on a line by itself.
If you wish, you may follow the @bye line with notes. These
notes will not be formatted and will not appear in either Info or a
printed manual; it is as if text after @bye were within
@ignore ... @end ignore. Also, you may follow the
@bye line with a local variables list for Emacs.
See Using Local Variables and the Compile Command,
for more information.
The chapter structuring commands divide a document into a hierarchy of chapters, sections, subsections, and subsubsections. These commands generate large headings; they also provide information for the table of contents of a printed manual (see Generating a Table of Contents).
The chapter structuring commands do not create an Info node structure,
so normally you should put an @node command immediately before
each chapter structuring command (see Nodes). The only time you
are likely to use the chapter structuring commands without using the
node structuring commands is if you are writing a document that
contains no cross references and will never be transformed into Info
format.
It is unlikely that you will ever write a Texinfo file that is intended only as an Info file and not as a printable document. If you do, you might still use chapter structuring commands to create a heading at the top of each node--but you don't need to.
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 of which has 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 looks like this:
@node Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 1, top
@chapter Chapter 2
The chapter structuring commands are described in the sections that
follow; the @node and @menu commands are described in
following chapters. (See Nodes, and see Menus.)
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 are the @chapter series, the
@unnumbered series, the @appendix series, and the
@heading series.
Each command produces titles that have a different appearance on the printed page or Info file; only some of the commands produce titles that are listed in the table of contents of a printed book or manual.
@chapter and @appendix series of commands produce
numbered or lettered entries both in the body of a printed work and in
its table of contents.
@unnumbered series of commands produce unnumbered entries
both in the body of a printed work and in its table of contents. The
@top command, which has a special use, is a member of this
series (see @top).
@heading series of commands produce unnumbered headings
that do not appear in a table of contents. The heading commands never
start a new page.
@majorheading command produces results similar to using
the @chapheading command but generates a larger vertical
whitespace before the heading.
@setchapternewpage command says to do so, the
@chapter, @unnumbered, and @appendix commands
start new pages in the printed manual; the @heading commands
do not.
Here are the four groups of chapter structuring commands:
| No new page
| |||
| Numbered | Unnumbered | Lettered/numbered | Unnumbered
|
| In contents | In contents | In contents | Omitted from contents |
@top | @majorheading
| ||
@chapter | @unnumbered | @appendix | @chapheading
|
@section | @unnumberedsec | @appendixsec | @heading
|
@subsection | @unnumberedsubsec | @appendixsubsec | @subheading
|
@subsubsection | @unnumberedsubsubsec | @appendixsubsubsec | @subsubheading
|
@topThe @top command is a special sectioning command that you use
only after an @node Top line at the beginning of a Texinfo file.
The @top command tells the makeinfo formatter which node
is the `Top' node, so it can use it as the root of the node tree if your
manual uses implicit pointers. It has the same typesetting effect as
@unnumbered (see @unnumbered and @appendix). For detailed information, see The @top Command.
The @top node and its menu (if any) is conventionally wrapped in
an @ifnottex conditional so that it will appear only in Info and
HTML output, not TeX.
@chapter@chapter identifies a chapter in the document. Write the
command at the beginning of a line and follow it on the same line by
the title of the chapter.
For example, this chapter in this manual is entitled "Chapter
Structuring"; the @chapter line looks like this:
@chapter Chapter Structuring
In TeX, the @chapter command creates a chapter in the
document, specifying the chapter title. The chapter is numbered
automatically.
In Info, the @chapter command causes the title to appear on a
line by itself, with a line of asterisks inserted underneath. Thus,
in Info, the above example produces the following output:
Chapter Structuring
*******************
Texinfo also provides a command @centerchap, which is analogous
to @unnumbered, but centers its argument in the printed output.
This kind of stylistic choice is not usually offered by Texinfo.
@unnumbered and @appendixUse the @unnumbered command to create a chapter that appears
in a printed manual without chapter numbers of any kind. Use the
@appendix command to create an appendix in a printed manual
that is labelled by letter instead of by number.
For Info file output, the @unnumbered and @appendix
commands are equivalent to @chapter: the title is printed on a
line by itself with a line of asterisks underneath. (See @chapter.)
To create an appendix or an unnumbered chapter, write an
@appendix or @unnumbered command at the beginning of a
line and follow it on the same line by the title, as you would if you
were creating a chapter.
@majorheading, @chapheadingThe @majorheading and @chapheading commands put
chapter-like headings in the body of a document.
However, neither command causes TeX to produce a numbered heading or 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,
the @majorheading and
@chapheading commands are equivalent to
@chapter: the title is printed on a line by itself with a line
of asterisks underneath. (See @chapter.)
@sectionIn a printed manual, an @section command identifies a
numbered section within a chapter. The section title appears in the
table of contents. In Info, an @section command provides a
title for a segment of text, underlined with =.
This section is headed with an @section command and looks like
this in the Texinfo file:
@section @code{@@section}
To create a section, write the @section command at the
beginning of a line and follow it on the same line by the section
title.
Thus,
@section This is a section
produces
This is a section
=================
in Info.
@unnumberedsec, @appendixsec, @headingThe @unnumberedsec, @appendixsec, and @heading
commands are, respectively, the unnumbered, appendix-like, and
heading-like equivalents of the @section command.
(See @section.)
@unnumberedsec
@unnumberedsec command may be used within an
unnumbered chapter or within a regular chapter or appendix to
provide 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
@heading command anywhere you wish for a
section-style heading that will not appear in the table of contents.
@subsection CommandSubsections are to sections as sections are to chapters.
(See @section.) In Info, subsection titles are
underlined with -. For example,
@subsection This is a subsection
produces
This is a subsection
--------------------
In a printed manual, subsections are listed in the table of contents and are numbered three levels deep.
@subsection-like CommandsThe @unnumberedsubsec, @appendixsubsec, and
@subheading commands are, respectively, the unnumbered,
appendix-like, and heading-like equivalents of the @subsection
command. (See @subsection.)
In Info, the @subsection-like commands generate a title
underlined with hyphens. In a printed manual, 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 labelled with a letter and numbers; both of
these commands produce headings that appear in the table of
contents.
The fourth and lowest level sectioning commands in Texinfo are the `subsub' commands. They are:
@subsubsection
@subsection.) In a printed manual,
subsubsection titles appear in the table of contents and are numbered
four levels deep.
@unnumberedsubsubsec
@appendixsubsubsec
@subsubheading
@subsubheading command may be used anywhere that you need
a small heading that will not appear in the table of contents. In
Info, subsubheadings look exactly like ordinary subsubsection
headings.
In Info, `subsub' titles are underlined with periods. For example,
@subsubsection This is a subsubsection
produces
This is a subsubsection
.......................
@raisesections and @lowersectionsThe @raisesections and @lowersections commands raise and
lower the hierarchical level of chapters, sections, subsections and the
like. The @raisesections command changes sections to chapters,
subsections to sections, and so on. The @lowersections command
changes chapters to sections, sections to subsections, and so on.
An @lowersections command is useful if you wish to include text
that is written as an outer or standalone Texinfo file in another
Texinfo file as an inner, included file. If you write the command at
the beginning of the file, all your @chapter commands are
formatted as if they were @section commands, all your
@section command are formatted as if they were
@subsection commands, and so on.
@raisesections raises a command one level in the chapter
structuring hierarchy:
Change To
@subsection @section,
@section @chapter,
@heading @chapheading,
etc.
@lowersections lowers a command one level in the chapter
structuring hierarchy:
Change To
@chapter @section,
@subsection @subsubsection,
@heading @subheading,
etc.
An @raisesections or @lowersections command changes only
those structuring commands that follow the command in the Texinfo file.
Write an @raisesections or @lowersections command on a
line of its own.
An @lowersections command cancels an @raisesections
command, and vice versa. Typically, the commands are used like this:
@lowersections
@include somefile.texi
@raisesections
Without the @raisesections, all the subsequent sections in your
document will be lowered.
Repeated use of the commands continue to raise or lower the hierarchical level a step at a time.
An attempt to raise above `chapters' reproduces chapter commands; an attempt to lower below `subsubsections' reproduces subsubsection commands.
Nodes are the primary segments of a Texinfo file. They do not 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 node and menu commands and the chapter structuring commands are technically independent of each other:
You can use node pointers and menus to structure an Info file any way you want; and you can write a Texinfo file so that its Info output has a different structure than its printed output. However, virtually all Texinfo files are written such that the structure for the Info output corresponds to the structure for the printed output. It is neither convenient nor understandable to the reader to do otherwise.
Generally, printed output is structured in a tree-like hierarchy in which the chapters are the major limbs from which the sections branch out. Similarly, node pointers and menus are organized to create a matching structure in the Info output.
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
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 omit writing out these node names if your document is
hierarchically organized (see makeinfo Pointer Creation), but the
pointer relationships still obtain.
Please Note: `Next' refers to the next node 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. `Next' and `Previous' refer to nodes at the same hierarchical level. (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. (See 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::
@end menu
Write the node for Sect. 2.1 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 Cross References.)
Usually, an @node command and a chapter structuring command are
used in sequence, along with indexing commands. (You may follow the
@node line with a comment line that reminds you which pointer is
which.)
Here is the beginning of the chapter in this manual called "Ending a
Texinfo File". 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
@cindex Texinfo file ending
@cindex File ending
@node CommandA node is a segment 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, the one that follows
the @node line. On the other hand, in printed output nodes
are used only for cross references, so a chapter or section may
contain any number of nodes. Indeed, a chapter usually contains
several nodes, one for each section, subsection, and
subsubsection.
To create 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. The subsequent arguments are the names of the
`Next', `Previous', and `Up' pointers, in that order, and may be omitted
if your Texinfo document is hierarchically organized (see makeinfo Pointer Creation).
You may insert spaces before each name if you wish; the spaces are ignored. You must write the name of the node and (if present) the names of the `Next', `Previous', and `Up' pointers all on the same line. Otherwise, the formatters fail. (see info, for more information about nodes in Info.)
Usually, you write one of the chapter-structuring command lines
immediately after an @node line--for example, an
@section or @subsection line. (See Structuring Command Types.)
Please note: The GNU Emacs Texinfo mode updating commands work
only with Texinfo files in which @node lines are followed by chapter
structuring lines. See Updating Requirements.
TeX uses @node lines to identify the names to use 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. (Cross references, such as the one at the
end of this sentence, are made with @xref and related commands;
see Cross References.)
The name of a node identifies the node. The pointers enable you to reach other nodes and consist simply of the names of those nodes.
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 that 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 node pointers name the same node.
Usually, the first node of a Texinfo file is the `Top' node, and its
`Up' and `Previous' pointers point to the dir file, which
contains the main menu for all of Info.
The `Top' node itself contains the main or master menu for the manual. Also, it is helpful to include a brief description of the manual in the `Top' node. See First Node, for information on how to write the first node of a Texinfo file.
Even when you explicitly specify all pointers, that does not mean you can write the nodes in the Texinfo source file in an arbitrary order! Because TeX processes the file sequentially, irrespective of node pointers, you must write the nodes in the order you wish them to appear in the printed output.
@node Line
The easiest 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 you
can leave the pointers out of the Texinfo file and let makeinfo
insert node pointers into the Info file it creates. (See Texinfo Mode, and 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
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. A large
number of cross references are an especially important feature of a good
Info file.
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.
@node Line Tips
Here are three suggestions:
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.)
@node Line Requirements
Here are several requirements for @node lines:
Duplicates confuse the Info movement commands. This means, for example, that if you end every chapter with a summary, you must name each summary node differently. You cannot just call each one "Summary". You may, however, duplicate the titles of chapters, sections, and the like. Thus you can end each chapter in a book with a section called "Summary", so long as the node names for those sections are all different.
The node to which a pointer points may come before or after the node containing the pointer.
@, such as @ and
{. (For a few rare cases when this is useful, Texinfo has
limited support for using @-commands in node names; see
Pointer Validation.)
For example, the following is a section title in this manual:
@code{@@unnumberedsec}, @code{@@appendixsec}, @code{@@heading}
But the corresponding node name lacks the commas and the @'s:
unnumberedsec appendixsec heading
The first node of a Texinfo file is the Top node, except in an included file (see Include Files). The Top node should contain a short summary, copying permissions, and a master menu. See 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:
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 installed in the same Info directory tree;
in this case, use (dir) as the parent of the Top node; this is
short for (dir)top, and specifies the Top node in the dir
file, which contains the main menu for the Info system as a whole.
(dir), as it causes confusing behavior for users: if you are
in the Top node and hits <DEL> to go backwards, you wind up in the
middle of the some other entry in the dir file, which has nothing
to do with what you were reading.
See Installing an Info File, for more information about installing
an Info file in the info directory.
For concreteness, here is an example with explicit pointers (which you can maintain automatically with the texinfo mode commands):
Or you can leave the pointers off entirely and let the tools implicitly define them. This is recommended. Thus:
@node Top
@top Sectioning Command
A special sectioning command, @top should be used with the
@node Top line. The @top sectioning command tells
makeinfo that it marks the `Top' node in the file. It provides
the information that makeinfo needs to insert node pointers
automatically. Write the @top command at the beginning of the
line immediately following the @node Top line. Write the title
on the remaining part of the same line as the @top command.
In Info, the @top sectioning command causes the title to appear
on a line by itself, with a line of asterisks inserted underneath, as
other sectioning commands do.
In TeX and texinfo-format-buffer, the @top
sectioning command is merely a synonym for @unnumbered.
Neither of these formatters require an @top command, and do
nothing special with it. You can use @chapter or
@unnumbered after the @node Top line when you use
these formatters. Also, you can use @chapter or
@unnumbered when you use the Texinfo updating commands to
create or update pointers and menus.
Thus, in practice, a Top node starts like this:
@node Top
@top Your Manual Title
makeinfoThe makeinfo program has a feature for automatically defining
node pointers for a hierarchically organized file.
When you take advantage of this feature, you do not need to write the
`Next', `Previous', and `Up' pointers after the name of a node.
However, 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).
In addition, you must follow the `Top' @node line with a line
beginning with @top to mark the `Top' node in the
file. See @top.
Finally, 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 hierarchical level.
This node pointer insertion feature in makeinfo relieves you from
the need to update menus and pointers manually or with Texinfo mode
commands. (See Updating Nodes and Menus.)
In most cases, you will want to take advantage of this feature and not redundantly specify node pointers. However, Texinfo documents are not required to be organized hierarchically or in fact contain sectioning commands at all. For example, if you never intend the document to be printed. In those cases, you will need to explicitly specify the pointers.
@anchor: Defining Arbitrary Cross-reference TargetsAn 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. See Cross References, for details on the
cross-reference commands.
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.
Spaces are always 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 in standalone Info takes either an anchor name or a node name as
an argument. (See goto-node.)
Menus contain pointers to subordinate nodes.6 In Info, you use menus to go to such nodes. Menus have no effect in printed manuals and do not appear in them.
By convention, a menu is put at the end of a node since a reader who uses the menu may not see text that follows it. Furthermore, a node that has a menu should not contain much text. If you have a lot of text and a menu, move most of the text into a new subnode--all but a few lines. Otherwise, a reader with a terminal that displays only a few lines may miss the menu and its associated text. As a practical matter, you should locate a menu within 20 lines of the beginning of the node.
The short text before a menu may look awkward in a printed manual. To
avoid this, you can write a menu near the beginning of its node and
follow the menu by an @node line, and then an @heading
line located within @ifinfo and @end ifinfo. This way,
the menu, @node line, and title appear only in the Info file,
not the printed document.
For example, the preceding two paragraphs follow an Info-only menu,
@node line, and heading, and look like this:
@menu
* Menu Location:: Put a menu in a short node.
* 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 entries.
* Other Info Files:: How to refer to a different
Info file.
@end menu
@node Menu Location, Writing a Menu, , Menus
@ifinfo
@heading Menus Need Short Nodes
@end ifinfo
The Texinfo file for this document contains a number of examples of this procedure; one is at the beginning of this chapter.
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 is a menu comment line that appears in the Info
file. In the example above, the line Larger Units of Text is a
menu comment line; the two lines starting with * are menu
entries. Space characters in a menu are preserved as-is; this allows
you to format the menu as you wish.
A menu entry has three parts, only the second of which is required:
The template for a menu entry looks like this:
* menu-entry-name: node-name. description
Follow the menu entry name with a single colon and follow the node name with tab, comma, period, or newline.
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 two or more 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.
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
You should use the node name for the menu entry name whenever possible, since it reduces visual clutter in the menu.
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
(see 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. In this case, you should use the three-part menu entry format, which saves the reader from having to type the file name.
The format looks like this:
@menu
* first-entry-name:(filename)nodename. description
* second-entry-name:(filename)second-node. description
@end menu
For example, to refer directly to the Outlining and
Rebinding nodes in the Emacs Manual, you would write a
menu like this:
@menu
* Outlining: (emacs)Outline Mode. The major mode for
editing outlines.
* Rebinding: (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.
The dir file that contains the main menu for Info has menu
entries that list only file names. These take you directly to the `Top'
nodes of each Info document. (See Installing an Info File.)
For example:
* Info: (info). Documentation browsing system.
* Emacs: (emacs). The extensible, self-documenting
text editor.
(The dir top level directory for the Info system is an Info file,
not a Texinfo file, but a menu entry looks the same in both types of
file.)
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.
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.
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. (see Some advanced Info commands.)
The various cross reference commands use nodes (or anchors,
see @anchor) to define cross reference locations.
This is evident in Info, in which a cross reference takes you to the
specified location. TeX also uses 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, if you are writing a manual that will only be
printed, and will not be used online, you must nonetheless write
@node lines to name the places to which you make cross
references.
There are four different cross reference commands:
@xref
*Note name: node..
@ref
@xref for Info; produces just the reference in the printed
manual without a preceding `See'.
@pxref
p is for `parenthesis'.)
@inforef
(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. See @cite.)
A cross reference command 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 for Info, a topic description or section title for the printed output, the name of a different Info file, and the name of a different printed manual.
Here is a simple cross reference example:
@xref{Node name}.
which produces
*Note Node name::.
and
See Section nnn [Node name], page ppp.
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:
.info
suffix on the file name, since Info readers try appending it
automatically.
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.
You can write cross reference commands within a paragraph, but note
how Info and TeX format the output of each of the various commands:
write @xref at the beginning of a sentence; write
@pxref only within parentheses, and so on.
@xrefThe @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.
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 in either the Info file or the printed output.
You must write that period or comma yourself; otherwise, Info will not
recognize the end of the reference. (The @pxref command works
differently. See @pxref.)
Please note: 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, both in
the Info file and in the printed manual.
@xref must refer to an Info node by name. Use @node
to define the node (see Writing a Node).
@xref is followed by several arguments inside braces, separated by
commas. Whitespace before and after these commas is ignored.
A cross reference 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.
Please note: Commas separate arguments in a cross reference; avoid including them in the title or other part lest the formatters mistake them for separators.
@xref with One Argument
The simplest form of @xref takes one argument, the name of
another node in the same Info 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.
For example,
@xref{Tropical Storms}.
produces
*Note Tropical Storms::.
and
See Section 3.1 [Tropical Storms], page 24.
(Note that in the preceding example the closing brace 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.
and
See Section 3.1 [Tropical Storms], page 24, for more info.
(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.)
@xref with Two Arguments
With two arguments, the second is used as the name of the Info 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.
and
See Section 5.2 [Electrical Effects], page 57.
(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.
and
See Section 5.2 [Electrical Effects], page 57, for more info.
(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.)
@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 upper case 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 avoid placing a comma within the title or topic section of a cross reference, or within any other section. The formatters divide cross references into arguments according to the commas; a comma within a title or other section will divide it into two arguments. In a reference, you need to write a title such as "Clouds, Mist, and Fog" without the commas.
Also, 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.
and
See Section 5.2 [Thunder and Lightning], page 57, for details.
If a third argument is given and the second one is empty, then the third argument serves 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.
and
See Section 5.2 [Thunder and Lightning], page 57, for details.
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, and with the first and third arguments if the node name and title are different.
Here are several examples from The GNU Awk User's Guide:
@xref{Sample Program}.
@xref{Glossary}.
@xref{Case-sensitivity, ,Case-sensitivity in Matching}.
@xref{Close Output, , Closing Output Files and Pipes},
for more information.
@xref{Regexp, , Regular Expressions as Patterns}.
@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. In the
following examples, a clause follows a terminating comma.
The 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}, for details.
produces
*Note Lightning: (weather)Electrical Effects, for details.
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, for details.
The title of the printed manual is typeset in italics; and the reference lacks a page number since TeX cannot know to which page a reference refers when that reference is to another manual.
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.
The template looks like this:
@xref{node-name, , title-or-topic, info-file-name,
printed-manual-title}, for details.
which produces
*Note title-or-topic: (info-file-name)node-name, for details.
and
See section title-or-topic in printed-manual-title, for details.
For example,
@xref{Electrical Effects, , Thunder and Lightning,
weather, An Introduction to Meteorology}, for details.
produces
*Note Thunder and Lightning: (weather)Electrical Effects,
for details.
and
See section "Thunder and Lightning" in An Introduction to Meteorology, for details.
On rare occasions, you may want to refer to another Info file that is within a single printed manual--when multiple Texinfo files are incorporated into the same TeX run but make separate Info files. In this case, you need to specify only the fourth argument, and not the fifth.
In a cross reference, you must always name a node. This means that in
order to refer to a whole manual, you must identify the `Top' node by
writing it as the first argument to the @xref command. (This
is different from the way you write a menu entry; see Referring to Other Info Files.) At the same time, to
provide a meaningful section topic or title in the printed cross
reference (instead of the word `Top'), you must write an appropriate
entry for the third argument to the @xref command.
Thus, to make a cross reference to The GNU Make Manual, write:
@xref{Top, , Overview, make, The GNU Make Manual}.
which produces
*Note Overview: (make)Top.
and
See section "Overview" in The GNU Make Manual.
In this example, Top is the name of the first node, and
Overview is the name of the first section of the manual.
@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, see @ref{Hurricanes}.
produces
For more information, see *Note Hurricanes::.
and
For more information, see Section 8.2 [Hurricanes], page 123.
The @ref command sometimes leads 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 will be using
both the printed and the Info format.
For example,
Sea surges are described in @ref{Hurricanes}.
produces
Sea surges are described in Section 6.7 [Hurricanes], page 72.
in a printed document, and the following in Info:
Sea surges are described in *Note Hurricanes::.
Caution: You must write a period, comma, or right parenthesis immediately after an@refcommand with two or more arguments. Otherwise, Info will not find the end of the cross reference entry and its attempt to follow the cross reference will fail. As a general rule, you should write a period or comma after every@refcommand. This looks best in both the printed and the Info output.
@pxrefThe parenthetical reference command, @pxref, is nearly the
same as @xref, but you use it only inside parentheses
and you do not type a comma or period after the command's
closing brace. The command differs from @xref in two
ways:
Because one type of formatting automatically inserts closing
punctuation and the other does not, you should use @pxref
only inside parentheses as part of another sentence. Also, you
yourself should not insert punctuation after the reference, as you do
with @xref.
@pxref is designed so that the output looks right and works
right between parentheses 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::) ...
and
... storms cause flooding (see Section 6.7 [Hurricanes], page 72) ...
With two arguments, a parenthetical cross reference has this template:
... (@pxref{node-name, cross-reference-name}) ...
which produces
... (*Note cross-reference-name: node-name.) ...
and
... (see Section nnn [node-name], page ppp) ...
@pxref can be used with up to five arguments just like
@xref (see @xref).
Please note: Use@pxrefonly as a parenthetical reference. Do not try to use@pxrefas a clause in a sentence. It will look bad in either the Info file, the printed output, or both.Also, parenthetical cross references look best at the ends of sentences. Although you may write them in the middle of a sentence, that location breaks up the flow of text.
@inforef@inforef is used for cross references to Info files for which
there are no printed manuals. Even in a printed manual,
@inforef generates a reference directing the user to look in
an Info file.
The command takes either two or three arguments, in the following order:
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},
Thus,
@inforef{Expert, Advanced Info commands, info},
for more information.
produces
*Note Advanced Info commands: (info)Expert,
for more information.
and
See Info fileinfo, nodeExpert, for more information.
Similarly,
@inforef{Expert, , info}, for more information.
produces
*Note (info)Expert::, for more information.
and
See Info fileinfo, nodeExpert, for more information.
The converse of @inforef is @cite, which is used to
refer to printed works for which no Info form exists. See @cite.
@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 output, @uref
produces a link you can follow.
The second argument, if specified, is the text to display (the default is the url itself); in Info and DVI output, but not in HTML output, the url is also output.
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. If the third argument is given, the second argument is ignored.
If the url is long enough to cause problems with line breaking, you
may find it useful to insert @/ at places where a line break
would be acceptable (after / characters, for instance). This
tells TeX to allow (but not force) a line break at those places.
See Line Breaks.
Here is an example of the simple one argument form, where the url is both the target and the text of the link:
The official GNU ftp site is @uref{ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu}.
produces:
The official GNU ftp site is ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu.
An example of the two-argument form:
The official @uref{ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu, GNU ftp site}
holds programs and texts.
produces:
The official GNU ftp site
holds programs and texts.
that is, the Info output is this:
The official GNU ftp site (ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu)
holds programs and texts.
and the HTML output is this:
The official <a href="ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu">GNU ftp site</a>
holds programs and texts.
An example of the three-argument form:
The @uref{/man.cgi/1/ls,,ls(1)} program ...
produces:
The ls(1) program ...
but with HTML:
The <a href="/man.cgi/1/ls">ls(1)</a> program ...
To merely indicate a url without creating a link people can follow, use
@url (see @url).
Some people prefer to display url's 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 any software that tries to detect url's in text already has to
detect them without the <URL: to be useful.
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.
Texinfo has commands for indicating just what kind of object a piece of
text refers to. For example, metasyntactic variables are marked by
@var, and code by @code. Since the pieces of text are
labelled by commands that tell what kind of object they are, it is easy
to change the way the Texinfo formatters prepare such text. (Texinfo is
an intentional formatting language rather than a typesetting
formatting language.)
For example, in a printed manual,
code is usually illustrated in a typewriter font;
@code tells TeX to typeset this text in this font. But it
would be easy to change the way TeX highlights code to use another
font, and this change would not affect how keystroke examples are
highlighted. If straight typesetting commands were used in the body
of the file and you wanted to make a change, you would need to check
every single occurrence to make sure that you were changing code and
not something else that should not be changed.
The highlighting commands can be used to extract useful information from the file, such as lists of functions or file names. It is possible, for example, to write a program in Emacs Lisp (or a keyboard macro) to insert an index entry after every paragraph that contains words or phrases marked by a specified command. You could do this to construct an index of functions if you had not already made the entries.
The commands serve a variety of purposes:
@code{sample-code}
@kbd{keyboard-characters}
@key{key-name}
@samp{text}
@var{metasyntactic-variable}
@env{environment-variable}
@file{file-name}
@command{command-name}
@option{option}
@dfn{term}
@cite{reference}
@acronym{acronym}
@url{uniform-resource-locator}
@email{email-address[, displayed-text]}
@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 lower case, you
should rearrange the sentence.
In the printed manual, @code causes TeX to typeset the
argument in a typewriter face. In the Info file, it causes the Info
formatting commands to use single quotation marks around the text.
For example,
The function returns @code{nil}.
produces this in the printed manual:
The function returns nil.
Here are some cases for which it is preferable not to use @code:
ls (use @command).
-c when such options stand alone (use
@option).
@samp rather than @code. In this case, the rule is to
choose the more pleasing format.
TEXINPUTS (use @env).
goto-ch, which is just a part of the
name for the goto-char Emacs Lisp function, you should use
@samp.
@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.
Since @command, @option, and @env were
introduced relatively recently, it is acceptable to use @code or
@samp for command names, options, and environment variables.
The new commands allow you to express the markup more precisely, but
there is no real harm in using the older commands, and of course the
long-standing manuals do so.
@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}
The @kbd command has the same effect as @code in Info,
but by default produces a different font (slanted typewriter instead of
normal typewriter) in the printed manual, so users can distinguish the
characters they are supposed to type from those 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
@kbd as @code.
example
@kbd only in @example
and similar environments.
distinct
@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 an r and then
press the <RET> key":
@kbd{r @key{RET}}
This produces: r <RET>
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 really want to mention a space character as one of the characters of input, write @key{SPC} for it.)
@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> you would type:
@kbd{C-x @key{ESC}}
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
- DEL
- 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>.
@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$}.
produces
To matchfooat the end of the line, use the regexpfoo$.
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, or @key.
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 area,e,i,o,u, and sometimesy.
@verb{<char>text<char>}
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 these @'e?`{}!`\ this?
This is in contrast to @samp (see the previous
section), whose argument is normal Texinfo text, where the characters
@{} are special; with @verb, nothing is special except
the delimiter character you choose.
@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 particular variables in
programming languages. These are specific names from a program, so
@code is correct for them (see 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 upper case. In the printed manual and HTML output, the
argument is printed in slanted type.
For example,
To delete file @var{filename},
type @samp{rm @var{filename}}.
produces
To delete file filename, typermfilename.
(Note that @var may appear inside @code,
@samp, @file, etc.)
Write a metasyntactic variable all in lower case 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. (You can, of
course, modify the sources to texinfo.tex and the Info formatting commands
to output the <...> format if you wish.)
@env{environment-variable}
Use the @env command to indicate environment variables, as used
by many operating systems, including GNU. Do not use it for
metasyntactic variables; use @var instead (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{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.
Currently, @file is equivalent to @samp in its effects.
For example,
The @file{.el} files are in
the @file{/usr/local/emacs/lisp} directory.
produces
The.elfiles are in the/usr/local/emacs/lispdirectory.
@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.
@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 @samp in its effects.
For example:
The option @option{-l} produces a long listing.
produces
The option -l produces a long listing.
In tables, putting options inside @code produces a
more pleasing effect.
@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.
@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.
See @xref.
@acronym{acronym}
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 abbreviations, you may prefer to
use periods, as in @acronym{F.B.I.}.
In TeX and HTML, the argument is printed in a slightly smaller font size. In Info or plain text output, this command changes nothing.
@url{uniform-resource-locator}
Use the @url command to indicate a uniform resource locator on
the World Wide Web. This is analogous to @file, @var,
etc., and is purely for markup purposes. It does not produce a link you
can follow in HTML output (use the @uref command for that,
see @uref). It is useful for url's which do
not actually exist. For example:
For example, the url might be @url{http://example.org/path}.
which produces:
For example, the url might be <http://example.org/path>.
@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 and TeX, the address is shown in angle brackets, preceded by
the text to display if any. 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.
Usually, Texinfo changes the font to mark words in the text according to
what 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 TeX will typeset
text. These commands have no effect on Info and only one of them,
the @r command, has any regular use.
@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.
For example,
@quotation
@strong{Caution:} @samp{rm * .[^.]*} removes @emph{all}
files in the directory.
@end quotation
*Caution*: `rm * .[^.]*' removes _all_
files in the directory.
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.
In the Info output, @emph surrounds the text with underscores
(_), and @strong puts asterisks around the text.
Caution: Do not use@strongwith the wordNote; Info will mistake the combination for a cross reference. Use a phrase such as Please note or Caution instead.
@sc{text}: The Small Caps Font
Use the @sc command to set text in the printed and the HTML
output in A SMALL CAPS FONT and set text in the Info file in upper
case letters. Write the text you want to be in small caps (where
possible) between braces in lower case, like this:
The @sc{acm} and @sc{ieee} are technical societies.
This produces:
The ACM and IEEE are technical societies.
TeX typesets the small caps font in a manner that prevents the letters from `jumping out at you on the page'. This makes small caps text easier to read than text in all upper case--but it's usually better to use regular mixed case anyway. The Info formatting commands set all small caps text in upper case. In HTML, the text is upper-cased and a smaller font is used to render it.
If the text between the braces of an @sc command is uppercase,
TeX typesets in FULL-SIZE CAPITALS. Use full-size capitals
sparingly, if ever, and since it's redundant to mark all-uppercase text
with @sc, makeinfo warns about such usage.
You may also use the small caps font for a jargon word such as ATO (a NASA word meaning `abort to orbit').
There are subtleties to using the small caps font with a jargon word
such as CDR, a word used in Lisp programming. In this case, you
should use the small caps font when the word refers to the second and
subsequent elements of a list (the CDR of the list), but you
should use @code when the word refers to the Lisp function of
the same spelling.
Texinfo provides four font commands that specify font changes in the
printed manual but have no effect in the Info file. @i
requests italic font (in some versions of TeX, a slanted font
is used), @b requests bold face, @t requests the
fixed-width, typewriter-style font used by @code, and @r requests a
roman font, which is the usual font in which text is printed. All
four commands apply to an argument that follows, surrounded by
braces.
Only the @r command has much use: in example programs, you
can use the @r command to convert code comments from the
fixed-width font to a roman font. This looks better in printed
output.
For example,
@lisp
(+ 2 2) ; @r{Add two plus two.}
@end lisp
produces
(+ 2 2) ; Add two plus two.
If possible, you should avoid using the other three font commands. If you need to use one, it probably indicates a gap in the Texinfo language.
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 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.
Here are commands for quotations and examples, explained further in the following sections:
@quotation
@example
@verbatim
@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.
@smallexample
@example, except that in TeX this command typesets
text in a smaller font.
@lisp
@example, but specifically for illustrating Lisp code. The
text is printed in a fixed-width font, and indented but not filled.
@smalllisp
@lisp as @smallexample is to @example.
@display
@smalldisplay
@display as @smallexample is to @example.
@format
@display (the text is not filled and no font is selected),
but the text is not indented.
@smallformat
@format as @smallexample is to @example.
The @exdent command is used within the above constructs to
undo the indentation of a line.
The @flushleft and @flushright commands are used to line
up the left or right margins of unfilled text.
The @noindent command may be used after one of the above
constructs to prevent the following text from being indented as a new
paragraph.
You can use the @cartouche command within one of the above
constructs to highlight the example or quotation by drawing a box with
rounded corners around it. See Drawing Cartouches Around Examples.
@quotationThe text of a quotation is processed normally except that:
This is an example of text written between an@quotationcommand and an@end quotationcommand. An@quotationcommand 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. Thus, the following,
@quotation
This is
a foo.
@end quotation
produces
This is a foo.
@example: Example TextThe @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:
@verbatim environment instead
(see @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 (see @noindent.
If you want to embed code fragments within sentences, instead of
displaying them, use the @code command or its relatives
(see @code).
@verbatim: Literal TextUse 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 output in a Texinfo manual. Here is an example;
the output you see is just the same as the input, with a line
@verbatim before and a line @end verbatim after.
This is an example of text written in a @verbatim block. No character substitutions are made. All commands are ignored, until `<at>end verbatim'. In the printed manual, the text is typeset in a fixed-width font, and not indented or filled. All spaces and blank lines are significant, including tabs.
Write a @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 a @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
produces
{
@command with strange characters: @'e
expand me
}
Since the lines containing @verbatim and @end verbatim
produce no output, tyically 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.
@verbatiminclude file: Include a File VerbatimYou 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
(see @verbatim). Generally, the file is printed
exactly as it is, with all special characters and white space retained.
The name of the file is taken literally, with a single exception:
@value{var} references are expanded. This makes it
possible to reliably include files in other directories in a
distribution, for instance:
@include @value{top_srcdir}/NEWS
(You still have to get top_srcdir defined in the
first place.)
@lisp: Marking a Lisp ExampleThe @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.7
Mark the end of @lisp with @end lisp on a line by
itself.
@small... Block CommandsIn addition to the regular @example and @lisp commands,
Texinfo has "small" example-style commands. These are
@smalldisplay, @smallexample, @smallformat, and
@smalllisp.
In Info, 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. Consequently,
many examples containing long lines fit on a page without needing to
be shortened.
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 @small...
commands (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 make it easier to prepare manuals
without forcing you to edit examples by hand to fit them onto narrower
pages.
As a general rule, a printed document looks much better if you use
only one of (for instance) @example or @smallexample
consistently within a chapter.
@display and @smalldisplayThe @display command begins a kind of example. It is like the
@example command
except that, in
a printed manual, @display does not select the fixed-width
font. In fact, it does not specify the font at all, so that the text
appears in the same font it would have appeared in without the
@display command.
This is an example of text written between an@displaycommand and an@end displaycommand. The@displaycommand indents the text, but does not fill it.
Texinfo also provides a command @smalldisplay, which is like
@display but uses a smaller font in @smallbook format.
See small.
@format and @smallformatThe @format command is similar to @example except
that, in the printed manual, @format does not select the
fixed-width font and does not narrow the margins.
This is an example of text written between an@formatcommand and an@end formatcommand. As you can see from this example, the@formatcommand does not fill the text.
Texinfo also provides a command @smallformat, which is like
@format but uses a smaller font in @smallbook format.
See small.
@exdent: Undoing a Line's IndentationThe @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 group
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.
@flushleft and @flushrightThe @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
flushright. The @flushright command
right justifies every line but leaves the
left end ragged.
@noindent: Omitting IndentationAn 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 (see Paragraph Indenting).
It is best to write @noindent on a line by itself, since in most
environments, spaces following the command will not be ignored. It's ok
to use it at the beginning of a line, with text following, outside of
any environment.
For example:
@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. (This whole example is between
@code{@@display} and @code{@@end display}.)
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. (This whole example is between
@display and @end display.)
To adjust the number of blank lines properly in the Info file output,
remember that the line containing @noindent does not generate a
blank line, and neither does the @end example line.
In the Texinfo source file for this manual, each line that says
`produces' is preceded by @noindent.
Do not put braces after an @noindent command; they are not
necessary, since @noindent is a command used outside of
paragraphs (see Command Syntax).
@indent: Forcing IndentationTo complement the @noindent command (see the previous
section), Texinfo provides the @indent command that forces a
paragraph to be indented. This paragraph, for instance, is indented
using an @indent command. The first paragraph of a section is
the most likely place to use @indent, to override the normal
behavior of no indentation there (see paragraphindent).
It is best to write @indent on a line by itself, since in most
environments, spaces following the command will not be ignored. The
@indent line will not generate a blank line in the Info output
within an environment.
However, it is ok to use it at the beginning of a line, with text following, outside of any environment.
Do not put braces after an @indent command; they are not
necessary, since @indent is a command used outside of
paragraphs (see Command Syntax).
@cartouche: Rounded Rectangles Around ExamplesIn a printed manual, the @cartouche command draws a box with
rounded corners around its contents. 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.
@cartouche affects only the printed manual; it has no effect in
other output files.
For example,
@example
@cartouche
% pwd
/usr/local/share/emacs
@end cartouche
@end example
surrounds the two-line example with a box with rounded corners, in the printed manual.
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.
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:
Here is an enumerated list with the same items:
And here is a two-column table with the same items and their @-commands:
@itemize
@enumerate
@table
@ftable
@vtable
@itemize: Making an Itemized ListThe @itemize command produces sequences of indented
paragraphs, with a bullet or other mark inside the left margin
at the beginning of each paragraph for which such a mark is desired.
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 write
@bullet after @itemize, but you can use
@minus, or any command or character that results in a single
character in the Info file. If you don't want any mark at all, use
@w. (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.
Write the text of the indented paragraphs themselves after the
@itemize, up to another line that says @end
itemize.
At the beginning of each paragraph for which a mark in the margin is
desired, write a line that starts with @item. It is ok to
have text following the @item.
Usually, you should put a blank line before an @item. This
puts a blank line in the Info file. (TeX inserts the proper
interline whitespace in either 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 TeX.
@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.
@enumerate: Making a Numbered or Lettered List@enumerate is like @itemize (see @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 lower case 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 paragraph that you want enumerated. It is ok to have text
following the @item.
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:
Here is an example with an argument of 3:
@enumerate 3
@item
Predisposing causes.
@item
Precipitating causes.
@item
Perpetuating causes.
@end enumerate
This produces:
Here is a brief summary of the alternatives. The summary is constructed
using @enumerate with an argument of a.
@enumerate
Without an argument, produce a numbered list, starting with the number 1.
@enumerate positive-integerWith 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.
@enumerate upper-case-letterWith an upper case letter as argument, start a list in which each item is marked by a letter, beginning with that upper case letter.
@enumerate lower-case-letterWith a lower case letter as argument, start a list in which each item is marked by a letter, beginning with that lower case letter.
You can also nest enumerated lists, as in an outline.
@table is similar to @itemize (see @itemize), but allows you to specify a name or heading line for
each item. The @table command is used to produce two-column
tables, and is especially useful for glossaries, explanatory
exhibits, and command-line option summaries.
@table Command
Use the @table command to produce two-column tables. It is
usually listed for "definition lists" of various sorts, where you
have a list of terms and a brief text with each one.
Write the @table command at the beginning of a line, after a
blank line, and follow it on the same line with an argument that is a
Texinfo "indicating" command such as @code, @samp,
@var, @option, or @kbd (see Indicating).
This command will be applied to the text that goes into the first
column of each item and thus determines how it will be highlighted.
For example, @table @code will cause the text in the first
column to be output as if it @code command.
You may also use the @asis command as an argument to
@table. @asis is a command that does nothing; if you
use this command after @table, the first column entries are
output without added highlighting ("as is").
The @table command works with other commands besides those
explicitly mentioned here. However, you can only use commands that
normally take arguments in braces. (In this case, however, you use
the command name without an argument, because the subsequent
@item's will supply the argument.)
Begin each table entry with an @item command at the beginning
of a line. Write the first column text on the same line as the
@item command. Write the second column text on the line
following the @item line and on subsequent lines. (You do not
need to type anything for an empty second column entry.) You may
write as many lines of supporting text as you wish, even several
paragraphs. But only the text on the same line as the @item
will be placed in the first column (including any footnotes).
Normally, you should put a blank line before an @item line.
This puts a blank line in the Info file. Except when the entries are
very brief, a blank line looks better.
End the table with a line consisting of @end table, followed
by a blank line. TeX will always start a new paragraph after the
table, so the blank line is needed for the Info output to be analogous.
The following table, for example, highlights the text in the first
column with an @samp command:
@table @samp
@item foo
This is the text for
@samp{foo}.
@item bar
Text for @samp{bar}.
@end table
This produces:
foo
foo.
bar
bar.
If you want to list two or more named items with a single block of
text, use the @itemx command. (See @itemx.)
@ftable and @vtable
The @ftable and @vtable commands are the same as the
@table command except that @ftable automatically enters
each of the items in the first column of the table into the index of
functions and @vtable automatically enters each of the items in
the first column of the table into the index of variables. This
simplifies the task of creating indices. Only the items on the same
line as the @item commands are indexed, and they are indexed in
exactly the form that they appear on that line. See Indices,
for more information about indices.
Begin a two-column table using @ftable or @vtable by
writing the @-command at the beginning of a line, followed on the same
line by an argument that is a Texinfo command such as @code,
exactly as you would for an @table command; and end the table
with an @end ftable or @end vtable command on a line by
itself.
See the example for @table in the previous section.
@itemx
Use the @itemx command inside a table when you have two or more
first column entries for the same item, each of which should appear on a
line of its own. Use @itemx for all but the first entry;
@itemx should always follow an @item command. The
@itemx command works exactly like @item except that it
does not generate extra vertical space above the first column text.
For example,
@table @code
@item upcase
@itemx downcase
These two functions accept a character or a string as
argument, and return the corresponding upper case (lower
case) character or string.
@end table
This produces:
upcase
downcase
(Note also that this example illustrates multi-line supporting text in a two-column table.)
@multitable allows you to construct tables with any number of
columns, with each column having any width you like.
You define the column widths on the @multitable line itself, and
write each row of the actual table following an @item command,
with columns separated by an @tab command. Finally, @end
multitable completes the table. Details in the sections below.
You can define the column widths for a multitable in two ways: as
fractions of the line length; or with a prototype row. Mixing the two
methods is not supported. In either case, the widths are defined
entirely on the same line as the @multitable command.
@columnfractions and the decimal numbers (presumably less than
1) after the @multitable command, as in:
@multitable @columnfractions .33 .33 .33
The fractions need not add up exactly to 1.0, as these do not. This allows you to produce tables that do not need the full line length. You can use a leading zero if you wish.
@multitable command. For example:
@multitable {some text for column one} {for column two}
The first column will then have the width of the typeset `some text for column one', and the second column the width of `for column two'.
The prototype entries need not appear in the table itself.
Although we used simple text in this example, the prototype entries can
contain Texinfo commands; markup commands such as @code are
particularly likely to be useful.
After the @multitable command defining the column widths (see
the previous section), you begin each row in the body of a multitable
with @item, and separate the column entries with @tab.
Line breaks are not special within the table body, and you may break
input lines in your source file as necessary.
Here is a complete example of a multi-column table (the text is from The GNU Emacs Manual, see Splitting Windows):
@multitable @columnfractions .15 .45 .4
@item Key @tab Command @tab Description
@item C-x 2
@tab @code{split-window-vertically}
@tab Split the selected window into two windows,
with one above the other.
@item C-x 3
@tab @code{split-window-horizontally}
@tab Split the selected window into two windows
positioned side by side.
@item C-Mouse-2
@tab
@tab In the mode line or scroll bar of a window,
split that window.
@end multitable
produces:
| Key | Command | Description
|
| C-x 2 | split-window-vertically
| Split the selected window into two windows,
with one above the other.
|
| C-x 3 | split-window-horizontally
| Split the selected window into two windows
positioned side by side.
|
| C-Mouse-2 | In the mode line or scroll bar of a window,
split that window.
|
Using Texinfo, you can generate indices without having to sort and collate entries manually. In an index, the entries are listed in alphabetical order, together with information on how to find the discussion of each entry. In a printed manual, this information consists of page numbers. In an Info file, this information is a menu entry leading to the first node referenced.
Texinfo provides several predefined kinds of index: an index for functions, an index for variables, an index for concepts, and so on. You can combine indices or use them for other than their canonical purpose. If you wish, you can define your own indices.
When you are making index entries, it is good practice to think of the different ways people may look for something. Different people do not think of the same words when they look something up. A helpful index will have items indexed under all the different words that people may use. For example, one reader may think it obvious that the two-letter names for indices should be listed under "Indices, two-letter names", since the word "Index" is the general concept. But another reader may remember the specific concept of two-letter names and search for the entry listed as "Two letter names for indices". A good index will have both entries and will help both readers.
Like typesetting, the construction of an index is a highly skilled, professional art, the subtleties of which are not appreciated until you need to do it yourself.
See Printing Indices & Menus, for information about printing an index at the end of a book or creating an index menu in an Info file.
Texinfo provides six predefined indices:
Not every manual needs all of these, and most manuals use two or three
of them. This manual has two indices: a
concept index and an @-command index (that is actually the function
index but is called a command index in the chapter heading). Two or
more indices can be combined into one using the @synindex or
@syncodeindex commands. See Combining Indices.
The data to make an index come from many individual indexing commands scattered throughout the Texinfo source file. Each command says to add one entry to a particular index; after formatting, the index will give the current page number or node name as the reference.
An index entry consists of an indexing command at the beginning of a line followed, on the rest of the line, by the entry.
For example, this section begins with the following five entries for the concept index:
@cindex Defining indexing entries
@cindex Index entries
@cindex Entries for an index
@cindex Specifying index entries
@cindex Creating index entries
Each predefined index has its own indexing command--@cindex
for the concept index, @findex for the function index, and so
on.
Concept index entries consist of text. The best way to write an index is to choose entries that are terse yet clear. If you can do this, the index often looks better if the entries are not capitalized, but written just as they would appear in the middle of a sentence. (Capitalize proper names and acronyms that always call for upper case letters.) This is the case convention we use in most GNU manuals' indices.
If you don't see how to make an entry terse yet clear, make it longer and clear--not terse and confusing. If many of the entries are several words long, the index may look better if you use a different convention: to capitalize the first word of each entry. But do not capitalize a case-sensitive name such as a C or Lisp function name or a shell command; that would be a spelling error.
Whichever case convention you use, please use it consistently!
Entries in indices other than the concept index are symbol names in programming languages, or program names; these names are usually case-sensitive, so use upper and lower case as required for them.
By default, entries for a concept index are printed in a small roman
font and entries for the other indices are printed in a small
@code font. You may change the way part of an entry is
printed with the usual Texinfo commands, such as @file for
file names and @emph for emphasis (see Marking Text).
The six indexing commands for predefined indices are:
@cindex concept@findex function@vindex variable@kindex keystroke@pindex program@tindex data typeCaution: Do not use a colon in an index entry. In Info, a colon separates the menu entry name from the node name, so a colon in the entry itself confuses Info. See The Parts of a Menu, for more information about the structure of a menu entry.
You are not actually required to use the predefined indices for their
canonical purposes. For example, suppose you wish to index some C
preprocessor macros. You could put them in the function index along
with actual functions, just by writing @findex commands for
them; then, when you print the "Function Index" as an unnumbered
chapter, you could give it the title `Function and Macro Index' and
all will be consistent for the reader. Or you could put the macros in
with the data types by writing @tindex commands for them, and
give that index a suitable title so the reader will understand.
(See Printing Indices & Menus.)
Sometimes you will want to combine two disparate indices such as functions and concepts, perhaps because you have few enough of one of them that a separate index for them would look silly.
You could put functions into the concept index by writing
@cindex commands for them instead of @findex commands,
and produce a consistent manual by printing the concept index with the
title `Function and Concept Index' and not printing the `Function
Index' at all; but this is not a robust procedure. It works only if
your document is never included as part of another
document that is designed to have a separate function index; if your
document were to be included with such a document, the functions from
your document and those from the other would not end up together.
Also, to make your function names appear in the right font in the
concept index, you would need to enclose every one of them between
the braces of @code.
@syncodeindex
When you want to combine functions and concepts into one index, you
should index the functions with @findex and index the concepts
with @cindex, and use the @syncodeindex command to
redirect the function index entries into the concept index.
The @syncodeindex command takes two arguments; they are the name
of the index to redirect, and the name of the index to redirect it to.
The template looks like this:
@syncodeindex from to
For this purpose, the indices are given two-letter names:
cp
fn
vr
ky
pg
tp
Write an @syncodeindex command before or shortly after the
end-of-header line at the beginning of a Texinfo file. For example,
to merge a function index with a concept index, write the
following:
@syncodeindex fn cp
This will cause all entries designated for the function index to merge in with the concept index instead.
To merge both a variables index and a function index into a concept index, write the following:
@syncodeindex vr cp
@syncodeindex fn cp
The @syncodeindex command puts all the entries from the `from'
index (the redirected index) into the @code font, overriding
whatever default font is used by the index to which the entries are
now directed. This way, if you direct function names from a function
index into a concept index, all the function names are printed in the
@code font as you would expect.
@synindex
The @synindex command is nearly the same as the
@syncodeindex command, except that it does not put the
`from' index entries into the @code font; rather it puts
them in the roman font. Thus, you use @synindex when you
merge a concept index into a function index.
See Printing Indices & Menus, for information about printing an index at the end of a book or creating an index menu in an Info file.
In addition to the predefined indices, you may use the
@defindex and @defcodeindex commands to define new
indices. These commands create new indexing @-commands with which
you mark index entries. The @defindex command is used like
this:
@defindex name
The name of an index should be a two letter word, such as au.
For example:
@defindex au
This defines a new index, called the au index. At the same
time, it creates a new indexing command, @auindex, that you
can use to make index entries. Use the new indexing command just as
you would use a predefined indexing command.
For example, here is a section heading followed by a concept index
entry and two au index entries.
@section Cognitive Semantics
@cindex kinesthetic image schemas
@auindex Johnson, Mark
@auindex Lakoff, George
(Evidently, au serves here as an abbreviation for "author".)
Texinfo constructs the new indexing command by concatenating the name
of the index with index; thus, defining an au index
leads to the automatic creation of an @auindex command.
Use the @printindex command to print the index, as you do with
the predefined indices. For example:
@node Author Index, Subject Index, , Top
@unnumbered Author Index
@printindex au
The @defcodeindex is like the @defindex command, except
that, in the printed output, it prints entries in an @code font
instead of a roman font. Thus, it parallels the @findex command
rather than the @cindex command.
You should define new indices within or right after the end-of-header
line of a Texinfo file, before any @synindex or
@syncodeindex commands (see Texinfo File Header).
Texinfo provides several commands for inserting characters that have special meaning in Texinfo, such as braces, and for other graphic elements that do not correspond to simple characters you can type.
@ and curly braces are special characters in Texinfo. To insert
these characters so they appear in text, you must put an @ in
front of these characters to prevent Texinfo from misinterpreting
them.
Do not put braces after any of these commands; they are not necessary.
@ with @@
@@ stands for a single @ in either printed or Info
output.
Do not put braces after an @@ command.
{ and }with @{ and @}
@{ stands for a single { in either printed or Info
output.
@} stands for a single } in either printed or Info
output.
Do not put braces after either an @{ or an @}
command.
The following sections describe commands that control spacing of various kinds within and after sentences.
Depending on whether a period or exclamation point or question mark is inside or at the end of a sentence, less or more space is inserted after a period in a typeset manual. Since it is not always possible to determine when a period ends a sentence and when it is used in an abbreviation, special commands are needed in some circumstances. Usually, Texinfo can guess how to handle periods, so you do not need to use the special commands; you just enter a period as you would if you were using a typewriter, which means you put two spaces after the period, question mark, or exclamation mark that ends a sentence.
Use the @: command after a period, question mark,
exclamation mark, or colon that should not be followed by extra space.
For example, use @: after periods that end abbreviations
which are not at the ends of sentences.
For example,
The s.o.p.@: has three parts ...
The s.o.p. has three parts ...
The s.o.p. has three parts ...
The s.o.p. has three parts ...
(Incidentally, s.o.p. is an abbreviation for "Standard Operating
Procedure".)
@: has no effect on the Info output. Do not put braces after
@:.
Use @. instead of a period, @! instead of an
exclamation point, and @? instead of a question mark at the end
of a sentence that ends with a single capital letter. Otherwise, TeX
will think the letter is an abbreviation and will not insert the correct
end-of-sentence spacing. Here is an example:
Give it to M.I.B. and to M.E.W@. Also, give it to R.J.C@.
Give it to M.I.B. and to M.E.W. Also, give it to R.J.C.
Give it to M.I.B. and to M.E.W. Also, give it to R.J.C.
Give it to M.I.B. and to M.E.W. Also, give it to R.J.C.
In the Info file output, @. is equivalent to a simple
.; likewise for @! and @?.
The meanings of @: and @. in Texinfo are designed to
work well with the Emacs sentence motion commands (see Sentences).
Do not put braces after any of these commands.
Ordinarily, TeX collapses multiple whitespace characters (space, tab, and newline) into a single space. Info output, on the other hand, preserves whitespace as you type it, except for changing a newline into a space; this is why it is important to put two spaces at the end of sentences in Texinfo documents.
Occasionally, you may want to actually insert several consecutive
spaces, either for purposes of example (what your program does with
multiple spaces as input), or merely for purposes of appearance in
headings or lists. Texinfo supports three commands:
@SPACE, @TAB, and @NL, all of
which insert a single space into the output. (Here,
@SPACE represents an @ character followed by a
space, i.e., @ , and TAB and NL represent the tab
character and end-of-line, i.e., when @ is the last character on
a line.)
For example,
Spacey@ @ @ @
example.
produces
Spacey example.
Other possible uses of @SPACE have been subsumed by
@multitable (see Multi-column Tables).
Do not follow any of these commands with braces.
To produce a non-breakable space, see @tie.
@dmn{dimension}: Format a Dimension
At times, you may want to write 12pt or
8.5in with little or no space between the number and the
abbreviation for the dimension. You can use the @dmn command
to do this. On seeing the command, TeX inserts just enough space
for proper typesetting; the Info formatting commands insert no space
at all, since the Info file does not require it.
To use the @dmn command, write the number and then follow it
immediately, with no intervening space, by @dmn, and then by
the dimension within braces. For example,
A4 paper is 8.27@dmn{in} wide.
produces
A4 paper is 8.27in wide.
Not everyone uses this style. Some people prefer 8.27 in.@:
or 8.27 inches to 8.27@dmn{in} in the Texinfo file.
In these cases, however, the formatters may insert a line break between
the number and the dimension, so use @w (see w). Also, if
you write a period after an abbreviation within a sentence, you should
write @: after the period to prevent TeX from inserting extra
whitespace, as shown here. See Not Ending a Sentence.
Here is a table with the commands Texinfo provides for inserting
floating accents. The commands with non-alphabetic names do not take
braces around their argument (which is taken to be the next character).
(Exception: @, does take braces around its argument.)
This is so as to make the source as convenient to type and read as
possible, since accented characters are very common in some languages.
To get the true accented characters output in Info, and not just the
ASCII transliterations, you can use the --enable-encoding
option to makeinfo (see makeinfo options).
| Command | Output | What
|
| @"o | ö | umlaut accent
|
| @'o | ó | acute accent
|
| @,{c} | ç | cedilla accent
|
| @=o | o¯ | macron/overbar accent
|
| @^o | ô | circumflex accent
|
| @`o | ò | grave accent
|
| @~o | õ | tilde accent
|
| @dotaccent{o} | o. | overdot accent
|
| @H{o} | o'' | long Hungarian umlaut
|
| @ringaccent{o} | o* | ring accent
|
| @tieaccent{oo} | oo[ | tie-after accent
|
| @u{o} | o( | breve accent
|
| @ubaraccent{o} | o_ | underbar accent
|
| @udotaccent{o} | .o | underdot accent
|
| @v{o} | o< | hacek or check accent
|
This table lists the Texinfo commands for inserting other characters commonly used in languages other than English.
| @exclamdown{} | ¡ | upside-down !
|
| @questiondown{} | ¿ | upside-down ?
|
| @aa{},@AA{} | å,Å | a,A with circle
|
| @ae{},@AE{} | æ,Æ | ae,AE ligatures
|
| @dotless{i} | i | dotless i
|
| @dotless{j} | j | dotless j
|
| @l{},@L{} | /l,/L | suppressed-L,l
|
| @o{},@O{} | ø,Ø | O,o with slash
|
| @oe{},@OE{} | œ,Œ | oe,OE ligatures
|
| @ss{} | ß | es-zet or sharp S
|
An ellipsis (a line of dots) is not typeset as a string of
periods, so a special command is used for ellipsis in Texinfo. The
@bullet command is special, too. Each of these commands is
followed by a pair of braces, {}, without any whitespace
between the name of the command and the braces. (You need to use braces
with these commands because you can use them next to other text; without
the braces, the formatters would be confused. See @-Command Syntax, for further information.)
@dots{} (...) and @enddots{} (....)
Use the @dots{} command to generate an ellipsis, which is
three dots in a row, appropriately spaced, like this: `...'. Do
not simply write three periods in the input file; that would work for
the Info file output, but would produce the wrong amount of space
between the periods in the printed manual.
Similarly, the @enddots{} command generates an
end-of-sentence ellipsis (four dots) ....
@bullet{} (•)
Use the @bullet{} command to generate a large round dot, or
the closest possible thing to one. In Info, an asterisk is used.
Here is a bullet: •
When you use @bullet in @itemize, you do not need to
type the braces, because @itemize supplies them.
(See @itemize.)
The logo `TeX' is typeset in a special fashion and it needs an
@-command. The copyright symbol, `©', is also special.
Each of these commands is followed by a pair of braces, {},
without any whitespace between the name of the command and the
braces.
@TeX{} (TeX)
Use the @TeX{} command to generate `TeX'. In a printed
manual, this is a special logo that is different from three ordinary
letters. In Info, it just looks like TeX. The
@TeX{} command is unique among Texinfo commands in that the
T and the X are in upper case.
@copyright{} (©)
Use the @copyright{} command to generate `©'. In
a printed manual, this is a c inside a circle, and in Info,
this is (C).
@pounds{} (£): Pounds SterlingUse the @pounds{} command to generate `£'. In a
printed manual, this is the symbol for the currency pounds sterling.
In Info, it is a #. Other currency symbols are unfortunately not
available.
@minus{} (-): Inserting a Minus SignUse the @minus{} command to generate a minus sign. In a
fixed-width font, this is a single hyphen, but in a proportional font,
the symbol is the customary length for a minus sign--a little longer
than a hyphen, shorter than an em-dash:
-is a minus sign generated with@minus{}, `-' is a hyphen generated with the character-, `---' is an em-dash for text.
In the fixed-width font used by Info, @minus{} is the same
as a hyphen.
You should not use @minus{} inside @code or
@example because the width distinction is not made in the
fixed-width font they use.
When you use @minus to specify the mark beginning each entry in
an itemized list, you do not need to type the braces
(see @itemize.)
@math: Inserting Mathematical ExpressionsYou can write a short mathematical expression with the @math
command. Write the mathematical expression between braces, like this:
@math{(a + b)(a + b) = a^2 + 2ab + b^2}
(a + b)(a + b) = a^2 + 2ab + b^2
Thus, the @math command has no effect on the Info output;
makeinfo just reproduces the input, it does not try to
interpret the mathematics in any way.
@math implies @tex. This not only makes it possible to
write superscripts and subscripts (as in the above example), but also
allows you to use any of the plain TeX math control sequences. It's
conventional to use \ instead of @ for these commands.
As in:
@math{\sin 2\pi \equiv \cos 3\pi}
which looks like the input in Info and HTML:
\sin 2\pi \equiv \cos 3\pi
Since \ is an escape character inside @math, you can use
@\ to get a literal backslash (\\ will work in TeX,
but you'll get the literal \\ in Info). @\ is not
defined outside of @math, since a \ ordinarily produces a
literal \.
For displayed equations, you must at present use TeX directly (see Raw Formatter Commands).
In Texinfo, code is often illustrated in examples that are delimited
by @example and @end example, or by @lisp and
@end lisp. In such examples, you can indicate the results of
evaluation or an expansion using => or
==>. Likewise, there are commands to insert glyphs
to indicate
printed output, error messages, equivalence of expressions, and the
location of point.
The glyph-insertion commands do not need to be used within an example, but most often they are. Every glyph-insertion command is followed by a pair of left- and right-hand braces.
Here are the different glyph commands:
@result{} points to the result of an expression.
@expansion{} shows the results of a macro expansion.
@print{} indicates printed output.
@error{} indicates that the following text is an error
message.
@equiv{} indicates the exact equivalence of two forms.
@point{} shows the location of point.
@result{} (=>): Indicating Evaluation
Use the @result{} command to indicate the result of
evaluating an expression.
Thus, the following,
(cdr '(1 2 3))
=> (2 3)
may be read as "(cdr '(1 2 3)) evaluates to (2 3)".
@expansion{} (==>): Indicating an Expansion
When an expression is a macro call, it expands into a new expression.
You can indicate the result of the expansion with the
@expansion{} command.
For example, the following
@lisp
(third '(a b c))
@expansion{} (car (cdr (cdr '(a b c))))
@result{} c
@end lisp
produces
(third '(a b c))
==> (car (cdr (cdr '(a b c))))
=> c
which may be read as:
(third '(a b c))expands to(car (cdr (cdr '(a b c)))); the result of evaluating the expression isc.
Often, as in this case, an example looks better if the
@expansion{} and @result{} commands are indented
five spaces.
@print{} (-|): Indicating Printed Output
Sometimes an expression will print output during its execution. You
can indicate the printed output with the @print{} command.
In the following example, the printed text is indicated with
-|, and the value of the expression follows on the
last line.
(progn (print 'foo) (print 'bar))
-| foo
-| bar
=> bar
In a Texinfo source file, this example is written as follows:
@lisp
(progn (print 'foo) (print 'bar))
@print{} foo
@print{} bar
@result{} bar
@end lisp
@error{} (error-->): Indicating an Error Message
A piece of code may cause an error when you evaluate it. You can
designate the error message with the @error{} command.
Thus,
@lisp
(+ 23 'x)
@error{} Wrong type argument: integer-or-marker-p, x
@end lisp
produces
(+ 23 'x)
error--> Wrong type argument: integer-or-marker-p, x
This indicates that the following error message is printed when you evaluate the expression:
Wrong type argument: integer-or-marker-p, x
error--> itself is not part of the error message.
@equiv{} (==): Indicating Equivalence
Sometimes two expressions produce identical results. You can indicate the
exact equivalence of two forms with the @equiv{} command.
Thus,
@lisp
(make-sparse-keymap) @equiv{} (list 'keymap)
@end lisp
produces
(make-sparse-keymap) == (list 'keymap)
This indicates that evaluating (make-sparse-keymap) produces
identical results to evaluating (list 'keymap).
@point{} (-!-): Indicating Point in a Buffer
Sometimes you need to show an example of text in an Emacs buffer. In such examples, the convention is to include the entire contents of the buffer in question between two lines of dashes containing the buffer name.
You can use the @point{} command to show the location of point
in the text in the buffer. (The symbol for point, of course, is not
part of the text in the buffer; it indicates the place between
two characters where point is located.)
The following example shows the contents of buffer foo before
and after evaluating a Lisp command to insert the word changed.
---------- Buffer: foo ----------
This is the -!-contents of foo.
---------- Buffer: foo ----------
(insert "changed ")
=> nil
---------- Buffer: foo ----------
This is the changed -!-contents of foo.
---------- Buffer: foo ----------
In a Texinfo source file, the example is written like this:
@example
---------- Buffer: foo ----------
This is the @point{}contents of foo.
---------- Buffer: foo ----------
(insert "changed ")
@result{} nil
---------- Buffer: foo ----------
This is the changed @point{}contents of foo.
---------- Buffer: foo ----------
@end example
A footnote is for a reference that documents or elucidates the primary text.8
In Texinfo, footnotes are created with the @footnote command.
This command is followed immediately by a left brace, then by the text
of the footnote, and then by a terminating right brace. Footnotes may
be of any length (they will be broken across pages if necessary), but
are usually short. The template is:
ordinary text@footnote{text of footnote}
As shown here, the @footnote command should come right after the
text being footnoted, with no intervening space; otherwise, the footnote
marker might end up starting a line.
For example, this clause is followed by a sample footnote9; in the Texinfo source, it looks like this:
...a sample footnote@footnote{Here is the sample
footnote.}; in the Texinfo source...
As you can see, the source includes two punctuation marks next to each
other; in this case, .}; is the sequence. This is normal (the
first ends the footnote and the second belongs to the sentence being
footnoted), so don't worry that it looks odd.
In a printed manual or book, the reference mark for a footnote is a small, superscripted number; the text of the footnote appears at the bottom of the page, below a horizontal line.
In Info, the reference mark for a footnote is a pair of parentheses
with the footnote number between them, like this: (1). The
reference mark is followed by a cross-reference link to the footnote's
text.
In the HTML output, footnote references are marked with a small, superscripted number which is rendered as a hypertext link to the footnote text.
By the way, footnotes in the argument of an @item command for a
@table must be on the same line as the @item
(as usual). See Two-column Tables.
Info has two footnote styles, which determine where the text of the footnote is located:
Footnotes within it. Each footnote begins with an
(n) reference mark.
Here is an example of a single footnote in the end of node style:
--------- Footnotes ---------
(1) Here is a sample footnote.
(n) reference mark in the body of the
node. The footnote reference is actually a cross reference
which you use to reach the footnote node.
The name of the node with the footnotes is constructed
by appending -Footnotes to the name of the node
that contains the footnotes. (Consequently, the footnotes'
node for the Footnotes node is
Footnotes-Footnotes!) The footnotes' node has an
`Up' node pointer that leads back to its parent node.
Here is how the first footnote in this manual looks after being formatted for Info in the separate node style:
File: texinfo.info Node: Overview-Footnotes, Up: Overview
(1) The first syllable of "Texinfo" is pronounced like "speck", not
"hex". ...
A Texinfo file may be formatted into an Info file with either footnote style.
Use the @footnotestyle command to specify an Info file's
footnote style. Write this command at the beginning of a line followed
by an argument, either end for the end node style or
separate for the separate node style.
For example,
@footnotestyle end
or
@footnotestyle separate
Write an @footnotestyle command before or shortly after the
end-of-header line at the beginning of a Texinfo file. (If you
include the @footnotestyle command between the start-of-header
and end-of-header lines, the region formatting commands will format
footnotes as specified.)
If you do not specify a footnote style, the formatting commands use
their default style. Currently, texinfo-format-buffer and
texinfo-format-region use the `separate' style and
makeinfo uses the `end' style.
You can insert an image given in an external file with the
@image command.
Here is the basic synopsis of the @image command:
@image{filename [,width] [,height] [,alttext] [,extension]}
The filename argument is mandatory, and must not have an extension, because the different processors support different formats:
.eps (Encapsulated PostScript
format).
.pdf (Adobe's Portable Document Format).
makeinfo includes .txt verbatim for
Info output (more or less as if it was an @example).
makeinfo uses the optional fifth argument extension to
@image for the filename extension, if it is specified. For example:
@image{foo,,,,xpm}
will cause makeinfo to look for foo.xpm before any others.
The width and height arguments are described in the next section.
When producing html, makeinfo sets the alt attribute for
inline images to the optional fourth argument to @image, if
supplied. If not supplied, makeinfo uses the full file name of
the image being displayed.
If you do not supply the optional fifth argument, makeinfo
first tries filename.png; if that does not exist, it
tries filename.jpg. If that does not exist either, it
complains. (We cannot support GIF format directly due to software
patents.)
In Info output, makeinfo writes a reference to the binary image
file (with the .extension, .png, or .jpg
suffix) if it exists. It also physically includes the .txt
file if that exists. This way, Info readers which can display images
(such as the Emacs Info browser) can do so, whereas Info readers which
can only use text (such as the standalone Info reader) can display the
textual version.
The implementation of this is to put the following construct into the Info output:
^^H[image src="binaryfile" text="txtfile"
alt="alttext ... ^^H]
(If one of the files is not present, the corresponding argument is omitted.)
The reason for mentioning this here is that older Info browsers (this feature was introduced in Texinfo version 4.6) will display the above literally, which, although not ideal, should not be harmful.
The optional width and height arguments to the
@image command (see the previous section) specify the size to
scale the image to. They are ignored for Info output. If neither is
specified, the image is presented in its natural size (given in the
file); if only one is specified, the other is scaled proportionately;
and if both are specified, both are respected, thus possibly distorting
the original image by changing its aspect ratio.
The width and height may be specified using any valid TeX dimension, namely:
For example, the following will scale a file ridt.eps to one
inch vertically, with the width scaled proportionately:
@image{ridt,,1in}
For @image to work with TeX, the file epsf.tex must be
installed somewhere that TeX can find it. (The standard location is
texmf/tex/generic/dvips/epsf.tex, where texmf is a
root of your TeX directory tree.) This file is included in the
Texinfo distribution and is also available from
ftp://tug.org/tex/epsf.tex, among other places.
@image can be used within a line as well as for displayed
figures. Therefore, if you intend it to be displayed, be sure to leave
a blank line before the command, or the output will run into the
preceding text.
Usually, a Texinfo file is processed both by TeX and by one of the Info formatting commands. Line, paragraph, or page breaks sometimes occur in the `wrong' place in one or other form of output. You must ensure that text looks right both in the printed manual and in the Info file.
For example, in a printed manual, page breaks may occur awkwardly in the middle of an example; to prevent this, you can hold text together using a grouping command that keeps the text from being split across two pages. Conversely, you may want to force a page break where none would occur normally. Fortunately, problems like these do not often arise. When they do, use the break, break prevention, or pagination commands.
The break commands create or allow line and paragraph breaks:
@*
@sp n@-
@hyphenation{hy-phen-a-ted words}
These commands hold text together on a single line:
@w{text}
@tie{}
The pagination commands apply only to printed output, since Info files do not have pages.
@page
@group
@need mils@* and @/: Generate and Allow Line BreaksThe @* command forces a line break in both the printed manual and
in Info. The @/ command allows a line break (printed manual only).
Here is an example with @*:
This line @* is broken @*in two places.
produces
This line
is broken
in two places.
Do not write an @refill command at the end of a paragraph
containing an @* command; it will cause the paragraph to be
refilled after the line break occurs, negating the effect of the line
break. See Refilling Paragraphs.
The @/ command can be useful within a url
(see @uref), which tend to be long and are otherwise
unbreakable. For example:
The official Texinfo home page is on the GNU web site:
@uref{http://www.gnu.org/@/software/@/gnu/@/texinfo}.
produces
The official Texinfo home page is on the GNU web site:
http://www.gnu.org/software/gnu/texinfo.
Without the @/ commands, TeX would have nowhere to
break the line. @/ has no effect in the online output.
@- and @hyphenation: Helping TeX HyphenateAlthough TeX's hyphenation algorithm is generally pretty good, it does miss useful hyphenation points from time to time. (Or, far more rarely, insert an incorrect hyphenation.) So, for documents with an unusual vocabulary or when fine-tuning for a printed edition, you may wish to help TeX out. Texinfo supports two commands for this:
@-
@-.
@hyphenation{hy-phen-a-ted words}
- at each hyphenation point. For example:
@hyphenation{man-u-script man-u-scripts}
TeX only uses the specified hyphenation points when the
words match exactly, so give all necessary variants.
Info output is not hyphenated, so these commands have no effect there.
@w{text}: Prevent Line Breaks@w{text} outputs text and prohibits line breaks
within text.
You can use the @w command to prevent TeX from automatically
hyphenating a long name or phrase that happens to fall near the end of a
line. For example:
You can copy GNU software from @w{@samp{ftp.gnu.org}}.
produces
You can copy GNU software from ftp.gnu.org.
You can also use @w to produce a non-breakable space, fixed at
the width of a normal interword space:
@w{ } @w{ } @w{ } indentation.
produces:
indentation.
The space from @w{ }, as well as being non-breakable, also
will not stretch or shrink. Sometimes that is what you want, for
instance if you're doing some manual indenting. However, usually you
want a normal interword space that does stretch and shrink (in the
printed output); see the @tie command in the next section.
@tie{}: Inserting an Unbreakable SpaceThe @tie{} command produces a normal interword space at which
a line break may not occur. Always write it with following (empty)
braces, as usual for commands used within a paragraph. Here's an
example:
@TeX{} was written by Donald E.@tie{}Knuth.
produces:
TeX was written by Donald E. Knuth.
There are two important differences between @tie{} and
@w{ }:
@tie{} will stretch and shrink slightly
along with the normal interword spaces in the paragraph; the space
produced by @w{ } will not vary.
@tie{} allows hyphenation of the surrounding words, while
@w{ } inhibits hyphenation of those words (for TeXnical
reasons, namely that it produces an \hbox).
@sp n: Insert Blank LinesA line beginning with and containing only @sp n
generates n blank lines of space in both the printed manual and
the Info file. @sp also forces a paragraph break. For
example,
@sp 2
generates two blank lines.
The @sp command is most often used in the title page.
@page: Start a New PageA line containing only @page starts a new page in a printed
manual. The command has no effect on Info files since they are not
paginated. An @page command is often used in the @titlepage
section of a Texinfo file to start the copyright page.
@group: Prevent Page BreaksThe @group command (on a line by itself) is used inside an
@example or similar construct to begin an unsplittable vertical
group, which will appear entirely on one page in the printed output.
The group is terminated by a line containing only @end group.
These two lines produce no output of their own, and in the Info file
output they have no effect at all.
Although @group would make sense conceptually in a wide
variety of contexts, its current implementation works reliably only
within @example and variants, and within @display,
@format, @flushleft and @flushright.
See Quotations and Examples. (What all these commands have in
common is that each line of input produces a line of output.) In
other contexts, @group can cause anomalous vertical
spacing.
This formatting requirement means that you should write:
@example
@group
...
@end group
@end example
with the @group and @end group commands inside the
@example and @end example commands.
The @group command is most often used to hold an example
together on one page. In this Texinfo manual, more than 100 examples
contain text that is enclosed between @group and @end
group.
If you forget to end a group, you may get strange and unfathomable
error messages when you run TeX. This is because TeX keeps
trying to put the rest of the Texinfo file onto the one page and does
not start to generate error messages until it has processed
considerable text. It is a good rule of thumb to look for a missing
@end group if you get incomprehensible error messages in
TeX.
@need milsA line containing only @need n starts
a new page in a printed manual if fewer than n mils (thousandths
of an inch) remain on the current page. Do not use
braces around the argument n. The @need command has no
effect on Info files since they are not paginated.
This paragraph is preceded by an @need command that tells
TeX to start a new page if fewer than 800 mils (eight-tenths
inch) remain on the page. It looks like this:
@need 800
This paragraph is preceded by ...
The @need command is useful for preventing orphans (single
lines at the bottoms of printed pages).
The @deffn command and the other definition commands
enable you to describe functions, variables, macros, commands, user
options, special forms and other such artifacts in a uniform
format.
In the Info file, a definition causes the entity
category--`Function', `Variable', or whatever--to appear at the
beginning of the first line of the definition, followed by the
entity's name and arguments. In the printed manual, the command
causes TeX to print the entity's name and its arguments on the left
margin and print the category next to the right margin. In both
output formats, the body of the definition is indented. Also, the
name of the entity is entered into the appropriate index:
@deffn enters the name into the index of functions,
@defvr enters it into the index of variables, and so
on.
A manual need not and should not contain more than one definition for
a given name. An appendix containing a summary should use
@table rather than the definition commands.
The @deffn command is used for definitions of entities that
resemble functions. To write a definition using the @deffn
command, write the @deffn command at the beginning of a line
and follow it on the same line by the category of the entity, the name
of the entity itself, and its arguments (if any). Then write the body
of the definition on succeeding lines. (You may embed examples in the
body.) Finally, end the definition with an @end deffn command
written on a line of its own. (The other definition commands follow
the same format.)
The template for a definition looks like this:
@deffn category name arguments...
body-of-definition
@end deffn
For example,
@deffn Command forward-word count
This command moves point forward @var{count} words
(or backward if @var{count} is negative). ...
@end deffn
produces
forward-word count Command
This function moves point forward count words (or backward if count is negative). ...
Capitalize the category name like a title. If the name of the category contains spaces, as in the phrase `Interactive Command', write braces around it. For example:
@deffn {Interactive Command} isearch-forward
...
@end deffn
Otherwise, the second word will be mistaken for the name of the entity.
Some of the definition commands are more general than others. The
@deffn command, for example, is the general definition command
for functions and the like--for entities that may take arguments. When
you use this command, you specify the category to which the entity
belongs. The @deffn command possesses three predefined,
specialized variations, @defun, @defmac, and
@defspec, that specify the category for you: "Function",
"Macro", and "Special Form" respectively. (In Lisp, a special form
is an entity much like a function.) The @defvr command also is
accompanied by several predefined, specialized variations for describing
particular kinds of variables.
The template for a specialized definition, such as @defun, is
similar to the template for a generalized definition, except that you
do not need to specify the category:
@defun name arguments...
body-of-definition
@end defun
Thus,
@defun buffer-end flag
This function returns @code{(point-min)} if @var{flag}
is less than 1, @code{(point-max)} otherwise.
...
@end defun
produces
buffer-end flag Function
This function returns (point-min)if flag is less than 1,(point-max)otherwise. ...
See Sample Function Definition, for a more detailed example of a function
definition, including the use of @example inside the
definition.
The other specialized commands work like @defun.
Note that, due to implementation difficulties, macros are not expanded
in @deffn and all the other definition commands.
Some entities take optional or repeated arguments, which may be specified by a distinctive glyph that uses square brackets and ellipses. For example, a special form often breaks its argument list into separate arguments in more complicated ways than a straightforward function.
Here is the @defspec line of an example of an imaginary
special form:
foobar (var [from to [inc]]) body... Special Form
In this example, the arguments from and to are optional, but must both be present or both absent. If they are present, inc may optionally be specified as well. These arguments are grouped with the argument var into a list, to distinguish them from body, which includes all remaining elements of the form.
In a Texinfo source file, this @defspec line is written like
this (except it would not be split over two lines, as it is in this
example).
@defspec foobar (@var{var} [@var{from} @var{to}
[@var{inc}]]) @var{body}@dots{}
The function is listed in the Command and Variable Index under
foobar.
To create two or more `first' or header lines for a definition, follow
the first @deffn line by a line beginning with @deffnx.
The @deffnx command works exactly like @deffn
except that it does not generate extra vertical white space between it
and the preceding line.
For example,
@deffn {Interactive Command} isearch-forward
@deffnx {Interactive Command} isearch-backward
These two search commands are similar except ...
@end deffn
produces
| isearch-forward | Interactive Command |
| isearch-backward | Interactive Command |
| These two search commands are similar except ... |
Each definition command has an `x' form: @defunx,
@defvrx, @deftypefunx, etc.
The `x' forms work just like @itemx; see @itemx.
Texinfo provides more than a dozen definition commands, all of which are described in this section.
The definition commands automatically enter the name of the entity in
the appropriate index: for example, @deffn, @defun,
and @defmac enter function names in the index of functions;
@defvr and @defvar enter variable names in the index
of variables.
Although the examples that follow mostly illustrate Lisp, the commands can be used for other programming languages.
This section describes the commands for describing functions and similar entities:
@deffn category name arguments...
@deffn command is the general definition command for
functions, interactive commands, and similar entities that may take
arguments. You must choose a term to describe the category of entity
being defined; for example, "Function" could be used if the entity is
a function. The @deffn command is written at the beginning of a
line and is followed on the same line by the category of entity being
described, the name of this particular entity, and its arguments, if
any. Terminate the definition with @end deffn on a line of its
own.
For example, here is a definition:
@deffn Command forward-char nchars
Move point forward @var{nchars} characters.
@end deffn
This shows a rather terse definition for a "command" named
forward-char with one argument, nchars.
@deffn prints argument names such as nchars in italics or
upper case, as if @var had been used, because we think of these
names as metasyntactic variables--they stand for the actual argument
values. Within the text of the description, write an argument name
explicitly with @var to refer to the value of the argument. In
the example above, we used @var{nchars} in this way.
The template for @deffn is:
@deffn category name arguments...
body-of-definition
@end deffn
@defun name arguments...
@defun command is the definition command for functions.
@defun is equivalent to @deffn Function
....
For example,
@defun set symbol new-value
Change the value of the symbol @var{symbol}
to @var{new-value}.
@end defun
shows a rather terse definition for a function set whose
arguments are symbol and new-value. The argument names on
the @defun line automatically appear in italics or upper case as
if they were enclosed in @var. Terminate the definition with
@end defun on a line of its own.
The template is:
@defun function-name arguments...
body-of-definition
@end defun
@defun creates an entry in the index of functions.
@defmac name arguments...
@defmac command is the definition command for macros.
@defmac is equivalent to @deffn Macro ... and
works like @defun.
@defspec name arguments...
@defspec command is the definition command for special
forms. (In Lisp, a special form is an entity much like a function,
see Special Forms.)
@defspec is equivalent to @deffn {Special Form}
... and works like @defun.
Here are the commands for defining variables and similar entities:
@defvr category name@defvr command is a general definition command for
something like a variable--an entity that records a value. You must
choose a term to describe the category of entity being defined; for
example, "Variable" could be used if the entity is a variable.
Write the @defvr command at the beginning of a line and
follow it on the same line by the category of the entity and the
name of the entity.
Capitalize the category name like a title. If the name of the category contains spaces, as in the name "User Option", enclose it in braces. Otherwise, the second word will be mistaken for the name of the entity. For example,
@defvr {User Option} fill-column
This buffer-local variable specifies
the maximum width of filled lines.
...
@end defvr
Terminate the definition with @end defvr on a line of its
own.
The template is:
@defvr category name
body-of-definition
@end defvr
@defvr creates an entry in the index of variables for name.
@defvar name@defvar command is the definition command for variables.
@defvar is equivalent to @defvr Variable
....
For example:
@defvar kill-ring
...
@end defvar
The template is:
@defvar name
body-of-definition
@end defvar
@defvar creates an entry in the index of variables for
name.
@defopt name@defopt command is the definition command for user
options, i.e., variables intended for users to change according to
taste; Emacs has many such (see Variables). @defopt is equivalent to @defvr {User
Option} ... and works like @defvar.
The @deftypefn command and its variations are for describing
functions in languages in which you must declare types of variables and
functions, such as C and C++.
@deftypefn category data-type name arguments...
@deftypefn command is the general definition command for
functions and similar entities that may take arguments and that are
typed. The @deftypefn command is written at the beginning of
a line and is followed on the same line by the category of entity
being described, the type of the returned value, the name of this
particular entity, and its arguments, if any.
For example,
@deftypefn {Library Function} int foobar
(int @var{foo}, float @var{bar})
...
@end deftypefn
(where the text before the "...", shown above as two lines, would actually be a single line in a real Texinfo file) produces the following in Info:
-- Library Function: int foobar (int FOO, float BAR)
...
This means that foobar is a "library function" that returns an
int, and its arguments are foo (an int) and
bar (a float).
The argument names that you write in @deftypefn are not subject
to an implicit @var--since the actual names of the arguments in
@deftypefn are typically scattered among data type names and
keywords, Texinfo cannot find them without help. Instead, you must write
@var explicitly around the argument names. In the example
above, the argument names are foo and bar.
The template for @deftypefn is:
@deftypefn category data-type name arguments ...
body-of-description
@end deftypefn
Note that if the category or data type is more than one word then it must be enclosed in braces to make it a single argument.
If you are describing a procedure in a language that has packages,
such as Ada, you might consider using @deftypefn in a manner
somewhat contrary to the convention described in the preceding
paragraphs.
For example:
@deftypefn stacks private push
(@var{s}:in out stack;
@var{n}:in integer)
...
@end deftypefn
(The @deftypefn arguments are shown split into three lines, but
would be a single line in a real Texinfo file.)
In this instance, the procedure is classified as belonging to the
package stacks rather than classified as a `procedure' and its
data type is described as private. (The name of the procedure
is push, and its arguments are s and n.)
@deftypefn creates an entry in the index of functions for
name.
@deftypefun data-type name arguments...
@deftypefun command is the specialized definition command
for functions in typed languages. The command is equivalent to
@deftypefn Function ....
Thus,
@deftypefun int foobar (int @var{foo}, float @var{bar})
...
@end deftypefun
produces the following in Info:
-- Function: int foobar (int FOO, float BAR)
...
The template is:
@deftypefun type name arguments...
body-of-description
@end deftypefun
@deftypefun creates an entry in the index of functions for
name.
Variables in typed languages are handled in a manner similar to
functions in typed languages. See Typed Functions. The general
definition command @deftypevr corresponds to
@deftypefn and the specialized definition command
@deftypevar corresponds to @deftypefun.
@deftypevr category data-type name@deftypevr command is the general definition command for
something like a variable in a typed language--an entity that records
a value. You must choose a term to describe the category of the
entity being defined; for example, "Variable" could be used if the
entity is a variable.
The @deftypevr command is written at the beginning of a line
and is followed on the same line by the category of the entity
being described, the data type, and the name of this particular
entity.
For example:
@deftypevr {Global Flag} int enable
...
@end deftypevr
produces the following in Info:
-- Global Flag: int enable
...
The template is:
@deftypevr category data-type name
body-of-description
@end deftypevr
@deftypevr creates an entry in the index of variables for
name.
@deftypevar data-type name@deftypevar command is the specialized definition command
for variables in typed languages. @deftypevar is equivalent
to @deftypevr Variable ....
For example:
@deftypevar int fubar
...
@end deftypevar
produces the following in Info:
-- Variable: int fubar
...
The template is:
@deftypevar data-type name
body-of-description
@end deftypevar
@deftypevar creates an entry in the index of variables for
name.
Here are the commands for formatting descriptions about abstract objects, such as are used in object-oriented programming. A class is a defined type of abstract object. An instance of a class is a particular object that has the type of the class. An instance variable is a variable that belongs to the class but for which each instance has its own value.
In a definition, if the name of a class is truly a name defined in the
programming system for a class, then you should write an @code
around it. Otherwise, it is printed in the usual text font.
@defcv category class name@defcv command is the general definition command for
variables associated with classes in object-oriented programming. The
@defcv command is followed by three arguments: the category of
thing being defined, the class to which it belongs, and its
name. Thus,
@defcv {Class Option} Window border-pattern
...
@end defcv
illustrates how you would write the first line of a definition of the
border-pattern class option of the class Window.
The template is:
@defcv category class name
...
@end defcv
@defcv creates an entry in the index of variables.
@defivar class name@defivar command is the definition command for instance
variables in object-oriented programming. @defivar is
equivalent to @defcv {Instance Variable} ...
The template is:
@defivar class instance-variable-name
body-of-definition
@end defivar
@defivar creates an entry in the index of variables.
@deftypeivar class data-type name@deftypeivar command is the definition command for typed
instance variables in object-oriented programming. It is similar to
@defivar with the addition of the data-type parameter to
specify the type of the instance variable. @deftypeivar creates an
entry in the index of variables.
@defop category class name arguments...
@defop command is the general definition command for
entities that may resemble methods in object-oriented programming.
These entities take arguments, as functions do, but are associated with
particular classes of objects.
For example, some systems have constructs called wrappers that
are associated with classes as methods are, but that act more like
macros than like functions. You could use @defop Wrapper to
describe one of these.
Sometimes it is useful to distinguish methods and operations.
You can think of an operation as the specification for a method.
Thus, a window system might specify that all window classes have a
method named expose; we would say that this window system
defines an expose operation on windows in general. Typically,
the operation has a name and also specifies the pattern of arguments;
all methods that implement the operation must accept the same
arguments, since applications that use the operation do so without
knowing which method will implement it.
Often it makes more sense to document operations than methods. For
example, window application developers need to know about the
expose operation, but need not be concerned with whether a
given class of windows has its own method to implement this operation.
To describe this operation, you would write:
@defop Operation windows expose
The @defop command is written at the beginning of a line and
is followed on the same line by the overall name of the category of
operation, the name of the class of the operation, the name of the
operation, and its arguments, if any.
The template is:
@defop category class name arguments...
body-of-definition
@end defop
@defop creates an entry, such as `expose on
windows', in the index of functions.
@deftypeop category class data-type name arguments...
@deftypeop command is the definition command for typed
operations in object-oriented programming. It is similar to
@defop with the addition of the data-type parameter to
specify the return type of the method. @deftypeop creates an
entry in the index of functions.
@defmethod class name arguments...
@defmethod command is the definition command for methods
in object-oriented programming. A method is a kind of function that
implements an operation for a particular class of objects and its
subclasses.
@defmethod is equivalent to @defop Method ....
The command is written at the beginning of a line and is followed by
the name of the class of the method, the name of the method, and its
arguments, if any.
For example:
@defmethod bar-class bar-method argument
...
@end defmethod
illustrates the definition for a method called bar-method of
the class bar-class. The method takes an argument.
The template is:
@defmethod class method-name arguments...
body-of-definition
@end defmethod
@defmethod creates an entry, such as `bar-method on
bar-class', in the index of functions.
@deftypemethod class data-type name arguments...
@deftypemethod command is the definition command for methods
in object-oriented typed languages, such as C++ and Java. It is similar
to the @defmethod command with the addition of the
data-type parameter to specify the return type of the method.
Here is the command for data types:
@deftp category name attributes...
@deftp command is the generic definition command for data
types. The command is written at the beginning of a line and is
followed on the same line by the category, by the name of the type
(which is a word like int or float), and then by names of
attributes of objects of that type. Thus, you could use this command
for describing int or float, in which case you could use
data type as the category. (A data type is a category of
certain objects for purposes of deciding which operations can be
performed on them.)
In Lisp, for example, pair names a particular data
type, and an object of that type has two slots called the
CAR and the CDR. Here is how you would write the first line
of a definition of pair.
@deftp {Data type} pair car cdr
...
@end deftp
The template is:
@deftp category name-of-type attributes...
body-of-definition
@end deftp
@deftp creates an entry in the index of data types.
When you write a definition using @deffn, @defun, or
one of the other definition commands, please take care to use
arguments that indicate the meaning, as with the count argument
to the forward-word function. Also, if the name of an argument
contains the name of a type, such as integer, take care that the
argument actually is of that type.
A function definition uses the @defun and @end defun
commands. The name of the function follows immediately after the
@defun command and it is followed, on the same line, by the
parameter list.
Here is a definition from Calling Functions.
apply function &rest arguments Function
applycalls function with arguments, just likefuncallbut with one difference: the last of arguments is a list of arguments to give to function, rather than a single argument. We also say that this list is appended to the other arguments.
applyreturns the result of calling function. As withfuncall, function must either be a Lisp function or a primitive function; special forms and macros do not make sense inapply.(setq f 'list) => list (apply f 'x 'y 'z) error--> Wrong type argument: listp, z (apply '+ 1 2 '(3 4)) => 10 (apply '+ '(1 2 3 4)) => 10 (apply 'append '((a b c) nil (x y z) nil)) => (a b c x y z)An interesting example of using
applyis found in the description ofmapcar.
In the Texinfo source file, this example looks like this:
@defun apply function &rest arguments
@code{apply} calls @var{function} with
@var{arguments}, just like @code{funcall} but with one
difference: the last of @var{arguments} is a list of
arguments to give to @var{function}, rather than a single
argument. We also say that this list is @dfn{appended}
to the other arguments.
@code{apply} returns the result of calling
@var{function}. As with @code{funcall},
@var{function} must either be a Lisp function or a
primitive function; special forms and macros do not make
sense in @code{apply}.
@example
(setq f 'list)
@result{} list
(apply f 'x 'y 'z)
@error{} Wrong type argument: listp, z
(apply '+ 1 2 '(3 4))
@result{} 10
(apply '+ '(1 2 3 4))
@result{} 10
(apply 'append '((a b c) nil (x y z) nil))
@result{} (a b c x y z)
@end example
An interesting example of using @code{apply} is found
in the description of @code{mapcar}.
@end defun
In this manual, this function is listed in the Command and Variable
Index under apply.
Ordinary variables and user options are described using a format like that for functions except that variables do not take arguments.
Sometimes it is good to use different text for different output formats. For example, you can use the conditional commands to specify different text for the printed manual and the Info output.
Conditional commands may not be nested.
The conditional commands comprise the following categories.
Texinfo has an @if... environment for each output format, to
allow conditional inclusion of text for a particular output format.
@ifinfo begins segments of text that should be ignored by TeX
when it typesets the printed manual. The segment of text appears only
in the Info file and (for historical compatibility) the plain text
output. The @ifinfo command should appear on a line by itself;
end the Info-only text with a line containing @end ifinfo by
itself.
The @iftex and @end iftex commands are analogous to the
@ifinfo and @end ifinfo commands; they specify text that
will appear in the printed manual but not in the Info file. Likewise
for @ifhtml and @end ifhtml, which specify text to
appear only in HTML output. And for @ifplaintext and
@end ifplaintext, which specify text to appear only in plain
text output. And for @ifxml and
@end ifxml, for the XML output.
For example,
@iftex
This text will appear only in the printed manual.
@end iftex
@ifinfo
However, this text will appear only in Info (or plain text).
@end ifinfo
@ifhtml
And this text will only appear in HTML.
@end ifhtml
@ifplaintext
Whereas this text will only appear in plain text.
@end ifplaintext
@ifxml
And this will only appear in XML output.
@end ifxml
The preceding example produces the following line: And this text will only appear in HTML.
Notice that you only see one of the input lines, depending on which version of the manual you are reading.
You can specify text to be included in any output format other
than some given one with the @ifnot... commands:
@ifnothtml ... @end ifnothtml
@ifnotinfo ... @end ifnotinfo
@ifnotplaintext ... @end ifnotplaintext
@ifnottex ... @end ifnottex
@ifnotxml ... @end ifnotxml
The @ifnot... command and the @end command must
appear on lines by themselves in your actual source file.
If the output file is being made in the given format, the region is ignored. Otherwise, it is included.
With one exception (for historical compatibility): @ifnotinfo
text is omitted for both Info and plain text output, not just Info. To
specify text which appears only in Info and not in plain text, use
@ifnotplaintext, like this:
@ifinfo
@ifnotplaintext
This will be in Info, but not plain text.
@end ifnotplaintext
@end ifinfo
The regions delimited by these commands are ordinary Texinfo source as
with @iftex, not raw formatter source as with @tex
(see Raw Formatter Commands).
Inside a region delineated by @iftex and @end iftex,
you can embed some raw TeX commands. The Texinfo processors will
ignore such a region unless TeX output is being produced. You can
write the TeX commands as you would write them in a normal TeX
file, except that you must replace the \ used by TeX with an
@. For example, in the @titlepage section of a
Texinfo file, you can use the TeX command @vskip to format
the copyright page. (The @titlepage command causes Info to
ignore the region automatically, as it does with the @iftex
command.)
However, most features of plain TeX will not work within
@iftex, as they are overridden by Texinfo features. The
purpose of @iftex is to provide conditional processing for the
Texinfo source, not provide access to underlying formatting features.
You can enter plain TeX completely, and use \ in the TeX
commands, by delineating a region with the @tex and @end
tex commands. All plain TeX commands and category codes are
restored within an @tex region. The sole exception is that the
@ character still introduces a command, so that @end tex
can be recognized properly. As with @iftex, Texinfo
processors will ignore such a region unless TeX output is being produced.
In complex cases, you may wish to define new TeX macros within
@tex. You must use \gdef to do this, not \def,
because @tex regions are processed in a TeX group.
As an example, here is a mathematical expression written in plain TeX:
@tex
$$ \chi^2 = \sum_{i=1}^N
\left (y_i - (a + b x_i)
\over \sigma_i\right)^2 $$
@end tex
The output of this example will appear only in a printed manual. If you are reading this in Info, you will not see the equation that appears in the printed manual.
Analogously, you can use @ifhtml ... @end ifhtml to delimit
a region to be included in HTML output only, and @html ...
@end html for a region of raw HTML (again, except that @ is
still the escape character, so the @end command can be
recognized.)
Analogously, you can use @ifxml ... @end ifxml to delimit
a region to be included in XML output only, and @xml ...
@end xml for a region of raw XML (again, except that @ is
still the escape character, so the @end command can be
recognized.)
@set, @clear, and @valueYou can direct the Texinfo formatting commands to format or ignore parts
of a Texinfo file with the @set, @clear, @ifset,
and @ifclear commands.
Brief descriptions:
@set flag [value]
@clear flag@ifset flag@end ifset command
is formatted. If flag is clear, text through the following
@end ifset command is ignored.
@ifclear flag@end ifclear command
is ignored. If flag is clear, text through the following
@end ifclear command is formatted.
@set and @value
You use the @set command to specify a value for a flag, which is
later expanded by the @value command.
A flag is an identifier. In general, it is best to use only
letters and numerals in a flag name, not - or _--they
will work in some contexts, but not all, due to limitations in TeX.
The value is the remainder of the input line, and can contain anything.
Write the @set command like this:
@set foo This is a string.
This sets the value of the flag foo to "This is a string.".
The Texinfo formatters then replace an @value{flag}
command with the string to which flag is set. Thus, when
foo is set as shown above, the Texinfo formatters convert this:
@value{foo}
to this:
This is a string.
You can write an @value command within a paragraph; but you
must write an @set command on a line of its own.
If you write the @set command like this:
@set foo
without specifying a string, the value of foo is the empty string.
If you clear a previously set flag with @clear flag, a
subsequent @value{flag} command will report an error.
For example, if you set foo as follows:
@set how-much very, very, very
then the formatters transform
It is a @value{how-much} wet day.
into
It is a very, very, very wet day.
If you write
@clear how-much
then the formatters transform
It is a @value{how-much} wet day.
into
It is a {No value for "how-much"} wet day.
@ifset and @ifclear
When a flag is set, the Texinfo formatting commands format text
between subsequent pairs of @ifset flag and @end
ifset commands. When the flag is cleared, the Texinfo formatting
commands do not format the text. @ifclear operates
analogously.
Write the conditionally formatted text between @ifset flag
and @end ifset commands, like this:
@ifset flag
conditional-text
@end ifset
For example, you can create one document that has two variants, such as a manual for a `large' and `small' model:
You can use this machine to dig up shrubs
without hurting them.
@set large
@ifset large
It can also dig up fully grown trees.
@end ifset
Remember to replant promptly ...
In the example, the formatting commands will format the text between
@ifset large and @end ifset because the large
flag is set.
When flag is cleared, the Texinfo formatting commands do
not format the text between @ifset flag and
@end ifset; that text is ignored and does not appear in either
printed or Info output.
For example, if you clear the flag of the preceding example by writing
an @clear large command after the @set large command
(but before the conditional text), then the Texinfo formatting commands
ignore the text between the @ifset large and @end ifset
commands. In the formatted output, that text does not appear; in both
printed and Info output, you see only the lines that say, "You can use
this machine to dig up shrubs without hurting them. Remember to replant
promptly ...".
If a flag is cleared with an @clear flag command, then
the formatting commands format text between subsequent pairs of
@ifclear and @end ifclear commands. But if the flag
is set with @set flag, then the formatting commands do
not format text between an @ifclear and an @end
ifclear command; rather, they ignore that text. An @ifclear
command looks like this:
@ifclear flag
@value Example
You can use the @value command to minimize the number of places
you need to change when you record an update to a manual. See GNU Sample Texts, for an example of this same principle can work with
Automake distributions, and full texts.
Here is an example adapted from Overview):
@set EDITION 0.35 Beta
@set VERSION 3.63 Beta
@set UPDATED 14 August 1992
@set UPDATE-MONTH August 1992
@copying section (see copying):
@copying
This is Edition @value{EDITION},
last updated @value{UPDATED},
of @cite{The GNU Make Manual},
for @code{make}, version @value{VERSION}.
Copyright ...
Permission is granted ...
@end copying
@titlepage
@title GNU Make
@subtitle A Program for Directing Recompilation
@subtitle Edition @value{EDITION}, ...
@subtitle @value{UPDATE-MONTH}
@page
@insertcopying
...
@end titlepage
(On a printed cover, a date listing the month and the year looks less fussy than a date listing the day as well as the month and year.)
@ifnottex
@node Top
@top Make
@insertcopying
...
@end ifnottex
After you format the manual, the @value constructs have been
expanded, so the output contains text like this:
This is Edition 0.35 Beta, last updated 14 August 1992,
of `The GNU Make Manual', for `make', Version 3.63 Beta.
When you update the manual, you change only the values of the flags; you do not need to edit the three sections.
Texinfo has some support for writing in languages other than English, although this area still needs considerable work.
For a list of the various accented and special characters Texinfo supports, see Inserting Accents.
@documentlanguage ccThe @documentlanguage command declares the current document
language. Write it on a line by itself, with a two-letter ISO-639
language code following (list is included below). If you have a
multilingual document, the intent is to be able to use this command
multiple times, to declare each language change. If the command is not
used at all, the default is en for English.
At present, this command is ignored in Info and HTML output. For
TeX, it causes the file txi-cc.tex to be read (if it
exists). Such a file appropriately redefines the various English words
used in TeX output, such as `Chapter', `See', and so on.
It would be good if this command also changed TeX's ideas of the
current hyphenation patterns (via the TeX primitive
\language), but this is unfortunately not currently implemented.
Hereare the valid language codes, from ISO-639.
aa | Afar |
ab | Abkhazian |
af | Afrikaans
|
am | Amharic |
ar | Arabic |
as | Assamese
|
ay | Aymara |
az | Azerbaijani |
ba | Bashkir
|
be | Byelorussian |
bg | Bulgarian |
bh | Bihari
|
bi | Bislama |
bn | Bengali; Bangla |
bo | Tibetan
|
br | Breton |
ca | Catalan |
co | Corsican
|
cs | Czech |
cy | Welsh |
da | Danish
|
de | German |
dz | Bhutani |
el | Greek
|
en | English |
eo | Esperanto |
es | Spanish
|
et | Estonian |
eu | Basque |
fa | Persian
|
fi | Finnish |
fj | Fiji |
fo | Faroese
|
fr | French |
fy | Frisian |
ga | Irish
|
gd | Scots Gaelic |
gl | Galician |
gn | Guarani
|
gu | Gujarati |
ha | Hausa |
he | Hebrew
|
hi | Hindi |
hr | Croatian |
hu | Hungarian
|
hy | Armenian |
ia | Interlingua |
id | Indonesian
|
ie | Interlingue |
ik | Inupiak |
is | Icelandic
|
it | Italian |
iu | Inuktitut |
ja | Japanese
|
jw | Javanese |
ka | Georgian |
kk | Kazakh
|
kl | Greenlandic |
km | Cambodian |
kn | Kannada
|
ks | Kashmiri |
ko | Korean |
ku | Kurdish
|
ky | Kirghiz |
la | Latin |
ln | Lingala
|
lt | Lithuanian |
lo | Laothian |
lv | Latvian, Lettish
|
mg | Malagasy |
mi | Maori |
mk | Macedonian
|
ml | Malayalam |
mn | Mongolian |
mo | Moldavian
|
mr | Marathi |
ms | Malay |
mt | Maltese
|
my | Burmese |
na | Nauru |
ne | Nepali
|
nl | Dutch |
no | Norwegian |
oc | Occitan
|
om | (Afan) Oromo |
or | Oriya |
pa | Punjabi
|
pl | Polish |
ps | Pashto, Pushto |
pt | Portuguese
|
qu | Quechua |
rm | Rhaeto-Romance |
rn | Kirundi
|
ro | Romanian |
ru | Russian |
rw | Kinyarwanda
|
sa | Sanskrit |
sd | Sindhi |
sg | Sangro
|
sh | Serbo-Croatian |
si | Sinhalese |
sk | Slovak
|
sl | Slovenian |
sm | Samoan |
sn | Shona
|
so | Somali |
sq | Albanian |
sr | Serbian
|
ss | Siswati |
st | Sesotho |
su | Sundanese
|
sv | Swedish |
sw | Swahili |
ta | Tamil
|
te | Telugu |
tg | Tajik |
th | Thai
|
ti | Tigrinya |
tk | Turkmen |
tl | Tagalog
|
tn | Setswana |
to | Tonga |
tr | Turkish
|
ts | Tsonga |
tt | Tatar |
tw | Twi
|
ug | Uighur |
uk | Ukrainian |
ur | Urdu
|
uz | Uzbek |
vi | Vietnamese |
vo | Volapuk
|
wo | Wolof |
xh | Xhosa |
yi | Yiddish
|
yo | Yoruba |
za | Zhuang |
zh | Chinese
|
zu | Zulu
|
@documentencoding encThe @documentencoding command declares the input document
encoding. Write it on a line by itself, with a valid encoding
specification following.
At present, Texinfo supports only three encodings:
US-ASCII
ISO-8859-1
ISO-8859-2
Specifying an encoding enc has the following effects:
In Info output, if the option --enable-encoding is also given
to makeinfo, a so-called `Local Variables' section
(see File Variables) is output
including enc. This allows Info readers to set the encoding
appropriately:
Local Variables:
coding: enc
End:
In HTML output, a <meta> tag is output, in the <head>
section of the HTML, that specifies enc. Web servers and
browsers cooperate to use this information so the correct encoding is
used to display the page.
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;
charset=enc">
In all other cases, it is recognized but ignored.
Texinfo provides several ways to define new commands:
Incidentally, these macros have nothing to do with the @defmac
command, which is for documenting macros in the subject of the manual
(see Def Cmd Template).
@alias is a convenient way to define a new name for an existing
command.
@definfoenclose allows you to define new commands with
customized output in the Info file.
You use the Texinfo @macro command to define a macro, like this:
@macro macroname{param1, param2, ...}
text ... \param1\ ...
@end macro
The parameters param1, param2, ... correspond to arguments supplied when the macro is subsequently used in the document (described in the next section).
For a macro to work consistently with TeX, macroname must
consist entirely of letters: no digits, hyphens, underscores, or other
special characters. So, we recommend using only letters. However,
makeinfo will accept anything except {}_^=;
_ and ^ are excluded so that macros can be called in
@math mode without a following space
(see @math).
If a macro needs no parameters, you can define it either with an empty
list (@macro foo {}) or with no braces at all (@macro
foo).
The definition or body of the macro can contain most Texinfo
commands, including previously-defined macros. Not-yet-defined macro
invocations are not allowed; thus, it is not possible to have mutually
recursive Texinfo macros. Also, a macro definition that defines another
macro does not work in TeX due to limitations in the design of
@macro.
In the macro body, instances of a parameter name surrounded by
backslashes, as in \param1\ in the example above, are
replaced by the corresponding argument from the macro invocation. You
can use parameter names any number of times in the body, including zero.
To get a single \ in the macro expansion, use \\. Any
other use of \ in the body yields a warning.
The newlines after the @macro line and before the @end
macro line are ignored, that is, not included in the macro body. All
other whitespace is treated according to the usual Texinfo rules.
To allow a macro to be used recursively, that is, in an argument to a
call to itself, you must define it with @rmacro, like this:
@rmacro rmac {arg}
a\arg\b
@end rmacro
...
@rmac{1@rmac{text}2}
This produces the output `a1atextb2b'. With @macro instead of
@rmacro, an error message is given.
You can undefine a macro foo with @unmacro foo.
It is not an error to undefine a macro that is already undefined.
For example:
@unmacro foo
After a macro is defined (see the previous section), you can use (invoke) it in your document like this:
@macroname {arg1, arg2, ...}
and the result will be just as if you typed the body of macroname at that spot. For example:
@macro foo {p, q}
Together: \p\ & \q\.
@end macro
@foo{a, b}
produces:
Together: a & b.
Thus, the arguments and parameters are separated by commas and delimited by braces; any whitespace after (but not before) a comma is ignored. The braces are required in the invocation (but not the definition), even when the macro takes no arguments, consistent with all other Texinfo commands. For example:
@macro argless {}
No arguments here.
@end macro
@argless{}
produces:
No arguments here.
To insert a comma, brace, or backslash in an argument, prepend a backslash, as in
@macname {\\\{\}\,}
which will pass the (almost certainly error-producing) argument
\{}, to macname. However, commas in parameters, even
if escaped by a backslash, might cause trouble in TeX.
If the macro is defined to take a single argument, and is invoked without any braces, the entire rest of the line after the macro name is supplied as the argument. For example:
@macro bar {p}
Twice: \p\ & \p\.
@end macro
@bar aah
produces:
Twice: aah & aah.
If the macro is defined to take a single argument, and is invoked with braces, the braced text is passed as the argument, regardless of commas. For example:
@macro bar {p}
Twice: \p\ & \p\.
@end macro
@bar{a,b}
produces:
Twice: a,b & a,b.
Due to unavoidable limitations, certain macro-related constructs cause
problems with TeX. If you get macro-related errors when producing
the printed version of a manual, try expanding the macros with
makeinfo by invoking texi2dvi with the -E
option (Format with texi2dvi).
@set and other such commands have no effect inside a
macro.
@ifnottex
@macro ctor {name, arg}
@macro \name\
something involving \arg\ somehow
@end macro
@end macro
@end ifnottex
@tex
\gdef\ctor#1{\ctorx#1,}
\gdef\ctorx#1,#2,{\def#1{something involving #2 somehow}}
@end tex
@alias new=existingThe @alias command defines a new command to be just like an
existing one. This is useful for defining additional markup names, thus
preserving semantic information in the input even though the output
result may be the same.
Write the @alias command on a line by itself, followed by the
new command name, an equals sign, and the existing command name.
Whitespace around the equals sign is ignored. Thus:
@alias new = existing
For example, if your document contains citations for both books and
some other media (movies, for example), you might like to define a
macro @moviecite{} that does the same thing as an ordinary
@cite{} but conveys the extra semantic information as well.
You'd do this as follows:
@alias moviecite = cite
Macros do not always have the same effect due to vagaries of argument parsing. Also, aliases are much simpler to define than macros. So the command is not redundant. (It was also heavily used in the Jargon File!)
Aliases must not be recursive, directly or indirectly.
definfoenclose: Customized HighlightingA @definfoenclose command may be used to define a highlighting
command for Info, but not for TeX. A command defined using
@definfoenclose marks text by enclosing it in strings that
precede and follow the text. You can use this to get closer control of
your Info output.
Presumably, if you define a command with @definfoenclose for Info,
you will create a corresponding command for TeX, either in
texinfo.tex, texinfo.cnf, or within an @iftex in
your document.
Write a @definfoenclose command on a line and follow it with
three arguments separated by commas. The first argument to
@definfoenclose is the @-command name (without the @);
the second argument is the Info start delimiter string; and the third
argument is the Info end delimiter string. The latter two arguments
enclose the highlighted text in the Info file. A delimiter string may
contain spaces. Neither the start nor end delimiter is required. If
you do not want a start delimiter but do want an end delimiter, you must
follow the command name with two commas in a row; otherwise, the Info
formatting commands will naturally misinterpret the end delimiter string
you intended as the start delimiter string.
If you do a @definfoenclose on the name of a pre-defined macro
(such as @emph, @strong, @t, or @i), the
enclosure definition will override the built-in definition.
An enclosure command defined this way takes one argument in braces; this is intended for new markup commands (see Marking Text).
For example, you can write:
@definfoenclose phoo,//,\\
near the beginning of a Texinfo file to define @phoo as an Info
formatting command that inserts `//' before and `\\' after the argument
to @phoo. You can then write @phoo{bar} wherever you
want `//bar\\' highlighted in Info.
Also, for TeX formatting, you could write
@iftex
@global@let@phoo=@i
@end iftex
to define @phoo as a command that causes TeX to typeset the
argument to @phoo in italics.
Each definition applies to its own formatter: one for TeX, the other
for texinfo-format-buffer or texinfo-format-region. The
@definfoenclose command need not be within @ifinfo, but
the raw TeX commands do need to be in @iftex.
Here is another example: write
@definfoenclose headword, , :
near the beginning of the file, to define @headword as an Info
formatting command that inserts nothing before and a colon after the
argument to @headword.
@definfoenclose definitions must not be recursive, directly or
indirectly.
There are three major shell commands for making a printed manual from a Texinfo file: one for converting the Texinfo file into a file that will be printed, a second for sorting indices, and a third for printing the formatted document. When you use the shell commands, you can either work directly in the operating system shell or work within a shell inside GNU Emacs.
If you are using GNU Emacs, you can use commands provided by Texinfo mode instead of shell commands. In addition to the three commands to format a file, sort the indices, and print the result, Texinfo mode offers key bindings for commands to recenter the output buffer, show the print queue, and delete a job from the print queue.
The typesetting program called TeX is used for formatting a Texinfo file. TeX is a very powerful typesetting program and, if used correctly, does an exceptionally good job. (See How to Obtain TeX, for information on how to obtain TeX.)
The standalone makeinfo program and Emacs functions
texinfo-format-region and texinfo-format-buffer commands
read the very same @-commands in the Texinfo file as does TeX, but
process them differently to make an Info file (see Creating an Info File).
tex and texindexFormat the Texinfo file with the shell command tex followed by
the name of the Texinfo file. For example:
tex foo.texi
TeX will produce a DVI file as well as several auxiliary files containing information for indices, cross references, etc. The DVI file (for DeVice Independent file) can be printed on virtually any device (see the following sections).
The tex formatting command itself does not sort the indices; it
writes an output file of unsorted index data. (The texi2dvi
command automatically generates indices; see Format with texi2dvi.) To generate a printed index after
running the tex command, you first need a sorted index to work
from. The texindex command sorts indices. (The source file
texindex.c comes as part of the standard Texinfo distribution,
among other places.)
The tex formatting command outputs unsorted index files under
names that obey a standard convention: the name of your main input file
with any .tex (or similar, see tex invocation) extension removed, followed by the two letter names of indices.
For example, the raw index output files for the input file
foo.texinfo would be foo.cp, foo.vr, foo.fn,
foo.tp, foo.pg and foo.ky. Those are exactly the
arguments to give to texindex.
Instead of specifying all the unsorted index file names explicitly, you
can use ?? as shell wildcards and give the command in this
form:
texindex foo.??
This command will run texindex on all the unsorted index files,
including any that you have defined yourself using @defindex
or @defcodeindex. (You may execute texindex foo.??
even if there are similarly named files with two letter extensions
that are not index files, such as foo.el. The texindex
command reports but otherwise ignores such files.)
For each file specified, texindex generates a sorted index file
whose name is made by appending s to the input file name. The
@printindex command looks for a file with that name
(see Printing Indices & Menus). texindex does not alter the
raw index output file.
After you have sorted the indices, you need to rerun the tex
formatting command on the Texinfo file. This regenerates the DVI file,
this time with up-to-date index entries.
Finally, you may need to run tex one more time, to get the page
numbers in the cross-references correct.
To summarize, this is a five step process:
tex on your Texinfo file. This generates a DVI file (with
undefined cross-references and no indices), and the raw index files
(with two letter extensions).
texindex on the raw index files. This creates the
corresponding sorted index files (with three letter extensions).
tex again on your Texinfo file. This regenerates the DVI
file, this time with indices and defined cross-references, but with page
numbers for the cross-references from last time, generally incorrect.
texindex.
tex one last time. This time the correct page numbers are
written for the cross-references.
Alternatively, it's a one-step process: run texi2dvi
(see Format with texi2dvi).
You need not run texindex each time after you run tex. If
you do not, on the next run, the tex formatting command will use
whatever sorted index files happen to exist from the previous use of
texindex. This is usually ok while you are debugging.
Sometimes you may wish to print a document while you know it is
incomplete, or to print just one chapter of a document. In that case,
the usual auxiliary files that TeX creates and warnings TeX gives
when cross-references are not satisfied are just nuisances. You can
avoid them with the @novalidate command, which you must give
before the @setfilename command
(see @setfilename). Thus, the beginning of
your file would look approximately like this:
\input texinfo
@novalidate
@setfilename myfile.info
...
@novalidate also turns off validation in
makeinfo, just like its --no-validate option
(see Pointer Validation).
texi2dviThe texi2dvi command automatically runs both tex and
texindex as many times as necessary to produce a DVI file with
sorted indices and all cross-references resolved. It is therefore
simpler than manually executing the
tex--texindex--tex--tex sequence
described in the previous section.
To run texi2dvi on an input file foo.texi, do this (where
prompt$ is your shell prompt):
prompt$ texi2dvi foo.texi
As shown in this example, the input filenames to texi2dvi must
include any extension (.texi, .texinfo, etc.). Under
MS-DOS and perhaps in other circumstances, you may need to run sh
texi2dvi foo.texi instead of relying on the operating system to invoke
the shell on the texi2dvi script.
Perhaps the most useful option to texi2dvi is
--command=cmd. This inserts cmd on a line by itself
after the @setfilename in a temporary copy of the input file
before running TeX. With this, you can specify different printing
formats, such as @smallbook (see smallbook),
@afourpaper (see A4 Paper), or @pagesizes
(see pagesizes), without actually changing the document source.
(You can also do this on a site-wide basis with texinfo.cnf;
see Preparing for TeX).
texi2dvi can also be used to process LaTeX files; simply
run texi2dvi doc.tex.
For a list of other options, run texi2dvi --help.
lpr -dThe precise command to print a DVI file depends on your system
installation. Two common ones are dvips foo.dvi -o and lpr
-d foo.dvi.
For example, the following commands will (perhaps) suffice to sort the indices, format, and print the Bison Manual:
tex bison.texinfo
texindex bison.??
tex bison.texinfo
lpr -d bison.dvi
(Remember that the shell commands may be different at your site; but these are commonly used versions.)
Using the texi2dvi shell script (see the previous section):
texi2dvi bison.texinfo
lpr -d bison.dvi
# or perhaps dvips bison.dvi -o
lpr is a standard program on Unix systems, but it is usually
absent on MS-DOS/MS-Windows. Some network packages come with a
program named lpr, but these are usually limited to sending files
to a print server over the network, and generally don't support the
-d option. If you are unfortunate enough to work on one of these
systems, you have several alternative ways of printing DVI files:
lpr program, or its clone.
If you can do that, you will be able to print DVI files just like
described above.
lpr which comes with your
network software will have a special option to send a file to specific
queues, like this:
lpr -Qdvi -hprint.server.domain bison.dvi
dvilj, for detailed description of these tools. Once
the DVI file is converted to the format your local printer understands
directly, just send it to the appropriate port, usually PRN.
You can give formatting and printing commands from a shell within GNU Emacs. To create a shell within Emacs, type M-x shell. In this shell, you can format and print the document. See Format and Print Hardcopy, for details.
You can switch to and from the shell buffer while tex is
running and do other editing. If you are formatting a long document
on a slow machine, this can be very convenient.
You can also use texi2dvi from an Emacs shell. For example,
here is how to use texi2dvi to format and print Using and
Porting GNU CC from a shell within Emacs:
texi2dvi gcc.texinfo
lpr -d gcc.dvi
Texinfo mode provides several predefined key commands for TeX formatting and printing. These include commands for sorting indices, looking at the printer queue, killing the formatting job, and recentering the display of the buffer in which the operations occur.
texi2dvi on the current buffer.
texinfo-tex-region.
texinfo-tex-region or
texinfo-tex-buffer.
texinfo-show-tex-print-queue).
texinfo-tex-region or texinfo-tex-buffer, or any other
process running in the Texinfo shell buffer.
.log file.
Thus, the usual sequence of commands for formatting a buffer is as follows (with comments to the right):
C-c C-t C-b Run texi2dvi on the buffer.
C-c C-t C-p Print the DVI file.
C-c C-t C-q Display the printer queue.
The Texinfo mode TeX formatting commands start a subshell in Emacs
called the *tex-shell*. The texinfo-tex-command,
texinfo-texindex-command, and tex-dvi-print-command
commands are all run in this shell.
You can watch the commands operate in the *tex-shell* buffer,
and you can switch to and from and use the *tex-shell* buffer
as you would any other shell buffer.
The formatting and print commands depend on the values of several variables. The default values are:
Variable Default value
texinfo-texi2dvi-command "texi2dvi"
texinfo-tex-command "tex"
texinfo-texindex-command "texindex"
texinfo-delete-from-print-queue-command "lprm"
texinfo-tex-trailer "@bye"
tex-start-of-header "%**start"
tex-end-of-header "%**end"
tex-dvi-print-command "lpr -d"
tex-show-queue-command "lpq"
You can change the values of these variables with the M-x
edit-options command (see Editing Variable Values), with the M-x set-variable command
(see Examining and Setting Variables), or with your .emacs initialization file
(see Init File).
Beginning with version 20, GNU Emacs offers a user-friendly interface,
called Customize, for changing values of user-definable variables.
See Easy Customization Interface, for more details about this. The Texinfo variables can
be found in the Development/Docs/Texinfo group, once you invoke
the M-x customize command.
Yet another way to apply the TeX formatting command to a Texinfo file
is to put that command in a local variables list at the end of the
Texinfo file. You can then specify the tex or texi2dvi
commands as a compile-command and have Emacs run it by typing
M-x compile. This creates a special shell called the
*compilation* buffer in which Emacs runs the compile command.
For example, at the end of the gdb.texinfo file, after the
@bye, you could put the following:
Local Variables:
compile-command: "texi2dvi gdb.texinfo"
End:
This technique is most often used by programmers who also compile programs this way; see Compilation.
Every Texinfo file that is to be input to TeX must begin with a
\input command and must contain an @setfilename command:
\input texinfo
@setfilename arg-not-used-by-TeX
The first command instructs TeX to load the macros it needs to process a Texinfo file and the second command opens auxiliary files.
Every Texinfo file must end with a line that terminates TeX's processing and forces out unfinished pages:
@bye
Strictly speaking, these lines are all a Texinfo file needs to be processed successfully by TeX.
Usually, however, the beginning includes an @settitle command to
define the title of the printed manual, an @setchapternewpage
command, a title page, a copyright page, and permissions. Besides an
@bye, the end of a file usually includes indices and a table of
contents. (And of course most manuals contain a body of text as well.)
For more information, see:
@settitle
@setchapternewpage
TeX needs to know where to find the texinfo.tex file that the
\input texinfo command on the first line reads. The
texinfo.tex file tells TeX how to handle @-commands; it is
included in all standard GNU distributions. The latest version is
always available at ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/texinfo/texinfo.tex.
Usually, the installer has put the texinfo.tex file in the
default directory that contains TeX macros when GNU Texinfo, Emacs or
other GNU software is installed. In this case, TeX will find the
file and you do not need to do anything special. If this has not been
done, you can put texinfo.tex in the current directory when you
run TeX, and TeX will find it there.
Also, you should install epsf.tex, if it is not already installed
from another distribution. More details are at the end of the description
of the @image command (see Images).
Likewise for pdfcolor.tex, if it is not already installed and you
use pdftex.
Optionally, you may create an additional texinfo.cnf, and install
it as well. This file is read by TeX when the @setfilename
command is executed (see @setfilename). You can put any
commands you like there, according to local site-wide conventions. They
will be read by TeX when processing any Texinfo document. For
example, if texinfo.cnf contains the line @afourpaper
(see A4 Paper), then all Texinfo documents will be processed with
that page size in effect. If you have nothing to put in
texinfo.cnf, you do not need to create it.
If neither of the above locations for these system files suffice for
you, you can specify the directories explicitly. For
texinfo.tex, you can do this by writing the complete path for the
file after the \input command. Another way, that works for both
texinfo.tex and texinfo.cnf (and any other file TeX
might read), is to set the TEXINPUTS environment variable in your
.cshrc or .profile file.
Which you use of .cshrc or .profile depends on
whether you use a Bourne shell-compatible (sh, bash,
ksh, ...) or C shell-compatible (csh, tcsh)
command interpreter. The latter read the .cshrc file for
initialization information, and the former read .profile.
In a .cshrc file, you could use the following csh command
sequence:
setenv TEXINPUTS .:/home/me/mylib:
In a .profile file, you could use the following sh command
sequence:
TEXINPUTS=.:/home/me/mylib:
export TEXINPUTS
On MS-DOS/MS-Windows, you would say it like this10:
set TEXINPUTS=.;d:/home/me/mylib;c:
It is customary for DOS/Windows users to put such commands in the
autoexec.bat file, or in the Windows Registry.
These settings would cause TeX to look for \input file first
in the current directory, indicated by the ., then in a
hypothetical user me's mylib directory, and finally in
the system directories. (A leading, trailing, or doubled :
indicates searching the system directories at that point.)
Finally, you may wish to dump a .fmt file (see Memory dumps) so that TeX can load Texinfo faster. (The
disadvantage is that then updating texinfo.tex requires
redumping.) You can do this by running this command, assuming
epsf.tex is findable by TeX:
initex texinfo @dump
(dump is a TeX primitive.) Then, move texinfo.fmt to
wherever your .fmt files are found; typically, this will be in the
subdirectory web2c of your TeX installation.
TeX is sometimes unable to typeset a line without extending it into the right margin. This can occur when TeX comes upon what it interprets as a long word that it cannot hyphenate, such as an electronic mail network address or a very long title. When this happens, TeX prints an error message like this:
Overfull @hbox (20.76302pt too wide)
(In TeX, lines are in "horizontal boxes", hence the term, "hbox".
@hbox is a TeX primitive not needed in the Texinfo language.)
TeX also provides the line number in the Texinfo source file and the text of the offending line, which is marked at all the places that TeX considered hyphenation. See Catching Errors with TeX Formatting, for more information about typesetting errors.
If the Texinfo file has an overfull hbox, you can rewrite the sentence so the overfull hbox does not occur, or you can decide to leave it. A small excursion into the right margin often does not matter and may not even be noticeable.
If you have many overfull boxes and/or an antipathy to rewriting, you can coerce TeX into greatly increasing the allowable interword spacing, thus (if you're lucky) avoiding many of the bad line breaks, like this:
@tex
\global\emergencystretch = .9\hsize
@end tex
(You should adjust the fraction as needed.) This huge value for
\emergencystretch cannot be the default, since then the typeset
output would generally be of noticeably lower quality; the default
is .15\hsize. \hsize is the TeX dimension
containing the current line width.
For what overfull boxes you have, however, TeX will print a large, ugly, black rectangle beside the line that contains the overfull hbox unless told otherwise. This is so you will notice the location of the problem if you are correcting a draft.
To prevent such a monstrosity from marring your final printout, write
the following in the beginning of the Texinfo file on a line of its own,
before the @titlepage command:
@finalout
By default, TeX typesets pages for printing in an 8.5 by 11 inch format. However, you can direct TeX to typeset a document in a 7 by 9.25 inch format that is suitable for bound books by inserting the following command on a line by itself at the beginning of the Texinfo file, before the title page:
@smallbook
(Since many books are about 7 by 9.25 inches, this command might better
have been called the @regularbooksize command, but it came to be
called the @smallbook command by comparison to the 8.5 by 11
inch format.)
If you write the @smallbook command between the
start-of-header and end-of-header lines, the Texinfo mode TeX
region formatting command, texinfo-tex-region, will format the
region in "small" book size (see Start of Header).
See small, for information about commands that make it easier to produce examples for a smaller manual.
See Format with texi2dvi, and Preparing for TeX, for other ways to format with @smallbook that do not
require changing the source file.
You can tell TeX to format a document for printing on European size
A4 paper (or A5) with the @afourpaper (or @afivepaper)
command. Write the command on a line by itself near the beginning of
the Texinfo file, before the title page. For example, this is how you
would write the header for this manual:
\input texinfo @c -*-texinfo-*-
@c %**start of header
@setfilename texinfo
@settitle Texinfo
@afourpaper
@c %**end of header
See Format with texi2dvi, and Preparing for TeX, for other ways to format for different paper sizes that do not require changing the source file.
You may or may not prefer the formatting that results from the command
@afourlatex. There's also @afourwide for A4 paper in
wide format.
@pagesizes [width][, height]: Custom Page SizesYou can explicitly specify the height and (optionally) width of the main
text area on the page with the @pagesizes command. Write this
on a line by itself near the beginning of the Texinfo file, before the
title page. The height comes first, then the width if desired,
separated by a comma. Examples:
@pagesizes 200mm,150mmand
@pagesizes 11.5in
This would be reasonable for printing on B5-size paper. To emphasize, this command specifies the size of the text area, not the size of the paper (which is 250mm by 177mm for B5, 14in by 8.5in for legal).
To make more elaborate changes, such as changing any of the page
margins, you must define a new command in texinfo.tex (or
texinfo.cnf, see Preparing for TeX).
See Format with texi2dvi, and Preparing for TeX, for other ways to specify @pagesizes that do not
require changing the source file.
@pagesizes is ignored by makeinfo.
You can (attempt to) direct TeX to print cropmarks at the corners of
pages with the @cropmarks command. Write the @cropmarks
command on a line by itself between @iftex and @end
iftex lines near the beginning of the Texinfo file, before the title
page, like this:
@iftex
@cropmarks
@end iftex
This command is mainly for printers that typeset several pages on one
sheet of film; but you can attempt to use it to mark the corners of a
book set to 7 by 9.25 inches with the @smallbook command.
(Printers will not produce cropmarks for regular sized output that is
printed on regular sized paper.) Since different printing machines work
in different ways, you should explore the use of this command with a
spirit of adventure. You may have to redefine the command in
texinfo.tex.
You can attempt to direct TeX to typeset pages larger or smaller than
usual with the \mag TeX command. Everything that is typeset
is scaled proportionally larger or smaller. (\mag stands for
"magnification".) This is not a Texinfo @-command, but is a
plain TeX command that is prefixed with a backslash. You have to
write this command between @tex and @end tex
(see Raw Formatter Commands).
Follow the \mag command with an = and then a number that
is 1000 times the magnification you desire. For example, to print pages
at 1.2 normal size, write the following near the beginning of the
Texinfo file, before the title page:
@tex
\mag=1200
@end tex
With some printing technologies, you can print normal-sized copies that look better than usual by giving a larger-than-normal master to your print shop. They do the reduction, thus effectively increasing the resolution.
Depending on your system, DVI files prepared with a
nonstandard-\mag may not print or may print only with certain
magnifications. Be prepared to experiment.
You can generate a PDF output file from Texinfo source by using the
pdftex program to process your file instead of plain
tex. That is, run pdftex foo.texi instead of tex
foo.texi, or give the --pdf option to texi2dvi.
PDF stands for `Portable Document Format'. It was invented by
Adobe Systems some years ago for document interchange, based on their
PostScript language. A PDF reader for the X window system is freely available, as is the
definition of the file format. At present, there are no @ifpdf or
@pdf commands as with the other output formats.
Despite the `portable' in the name, PDF files are nowhere near as portable in practice as the plain ASCII formats (Info, HTML) that Texinfo supports (DVI portability is arguable). They also tend to be much larger and do not support the bitmap fonts used by TeX (by default) very well. Nevertheless, a PDF file does preserve an actual printed document on a screen as faithfully as possible, so it has its place.
PDF support in Texinfo is fairly rudimentary.
This chapter describes how to create and install Info files. See Info Files, for general information about the file format itself.
makeinfo is a program that converts a Texinfo file into an Info
file, HTML file, or plain text. texinfo-format-region and
texinfo-format-buffer are GNU Emacs functions that convert
Texinfo to Info.
For information on installing the Info file in the Info system, see Installing an Info File.
makeinfo Preferred
The makeinfo utility creates an Info file from a Texinfo source
file more quickly than either of the Emacs formatting commands and
provides better error messages. We recommend it. makeinfo is a
C program that is independent of Emacs. You do not need to run Emacs to
use makeinfo, which means you can use makeinfo on machines
that are too small to run Emacs. You can run makeinfo in any one
of three ways: from an operating system shell, from a shell inside
Emacs, or by typing the C-c C-m C-r or the C-c C-m C-b
command in Texinfo mode in Emacs.
The texinfo-format-region and the texinfo-format-buffer
commands are useful if you cannot run makeinfo. Also, in some
circumstances, they format short regions or buffers more quickly than
makeinfo.
makeinfo from a Shell
To create an Info file from a Texinfo file, type makeinfo
followed by the name of the Texinfo file. Thus, to create the Info
file for Bison, type the following to the shell:
makeinfo bison.texinfo
(You can run a shell inside Emacs by typing M-x shell.)
makeinfo
The makeinfo command takes a number of options. Most often,
options are used to set the value of the fill column and specify the
footnote style. Each command line option is a word preceded by
-- or a letter preceded by -. You can use abbreviations
for the long option names as long as they are unique.
For example, you could use the following shell command to create an Info
file for bison.texinfo in which each line is filled to only 68
columns:
makeinfo --fill-column=68 bison.texinfo
You can write two or more options in sequence, like this:
makeinfo --no-split --fill-column=70 ...
This would keep the Info file together as one possibly very long file and would also set the fill column to 70.
The options are:
-D var@set var--commands-in-node-names
@-commands in node names. This is not recommended, as it
can probably never be implemented in TeX. It also makes
makeinfo much slower. Also, this option is ignored when
--no-validate is used. See Pointer Validation, for more
details.
--css-include=file<style> block of the HTML
output. See HTML CSS. If file is -, read standard
input.
--docbook
--enable-encoding
@documentencoding.
See documentencoding, and Inserting Accents.
--error-limit=limit-e limitmakeinfo will report
before exiting (on the assumption that continuing would be useless);
default 100.
--fill-column=width-f width--html.
--footnote-style=style-s styleend for the end
node style (the default) or separate for the separate node style.
The value set by this option overrides the value set in a Texinfo file
by an @footnotestyle command (see Footnotes). When the
footnote style is separate, makeinfo makes a new node
containing the footnotes found in the current node. When the footnote
style is end, makeinfo places the footnote references at
the end of the current node. Ignored with --html.
--force
-F
--help
-h
--html
-I dir@include command. By default,
makeinfo searches only the current directory. If dir is
not given, the current directory . is appended. Note that
dir can actually be a list of several directories separated by the
usual path separator character (: on Unix, ; on
MS-DOS/MS-Windows).
--ifhtml
--ifinfo
--ifplaintext
--iftex
--ifxml
@ifformat@format--iftex is specified, then
@iftex and @tex blocks will be read. This can be useful
when postprocessing the output.
--macro-expand=file-E filemakeinfo and then discarded. This option is used by
texi2dvi if you are using an old version of texinfo.tex
that does not support @macro.
--no-headers
INSTALL file).
For HTML output, likewise omit menus. And if --no-split is also
specified, do not include a navigation links at the top of each node
(these are never included in the default case of split output).
See Generating HTML.
In both cases, write to standard output by default (can still be
overridden by -o).
--no-ifhtml
--no-ifinfo
--no-ifplaintext
--no-iftex
--no-ifxml
@ifformat@format--no-ifhtml is specified, then @ifhtml and
@html blocks will not be read.
--no-split
makeinfo. By default, large
output files (where the size is greater than 70k bytes) are split into
smaller subfiles. For Info output, each one is approximately 50k bytes.
For HTML output, each file contains one node (see Generating HTML).
--no-pointer-validate
--no-validate
makeinfo. This can also
be done with the @novalidate command (see Use TeX). Normally, after a Texinfo file is processed, some consistency
checks are made to ensure that cross references can be resolved, etc.
See Pointer Validation.
--no-warn
--number-sections
--no-number-footnotes
makeinfo
numbers each footnote sequentially in a single node, resetting the
current footnote number to 1 at the start of each node.
--output=file-o file@setfilename command found in the
Texinfo source (see setfilename). If file is -, output
goes to standard output and --no-split is implied. For split
HTML output, file is the name for the directory into which all
HTML nodes are written (see Generating HTML).
-P dir@include.
If dir is not given, the current directory . is prepended.
See -I for more details.
--paragraph-indent=indent-p indent@paragraphindent command (see paragraphindent). The value
of indent is interpreted as follows:
asis
0 or none
--reference-limit=limit-r limitmakeinfo will make without reporting a warning. If a node has more
than this number of references in it, makeinfo will make the
references but also report a warning. The default is 1000.
--split-size=num-U var@clear var--verbose
makeinfo to display messages saying what it is doing.
Normally, makeinfo only outputs messages if there are errors or
warnings.
--version
-V
--xml
If you do not suppress pointer validation with the --no-validate
option or the @novalidate command in the source file (see Use TeX), makeinfo will check the validity of the final
Info file. Mostly, this means ensuring that nodes you have referenced
really exist. Here is a complete list of what is checked:
(dir), then the referenced node must exist.
Some Texinfo documents might fail during the validation phase because
they use commands like @value and @definfoenclose in
node definitions and cross-references inconsistently. Consider the
following example:
@set nodename Node 1
@node @value{nodename}, Node 2, Top, Top
This is node 1.
@node Node 2, , Node 1, Top
This is node 2.
Here, the node "Node 1" was referenced both verbatim and through
@value.
By default, makeinfo fails such cases, because node names are not
fully expanded until they are written to the output file. You should
always try to reference nodes consistently; e.g., in the above example,
the second @node line should have also used @value.
However, if, for some reason, you must reference node names
inconsistently, and makeinfo fails to validate the file, you can
use the --commands-in-node-names option to force makeinfo
to perform the expensive expansion of all node names it finds in the
document. This might considerably slow down the program, though;
twofold increase in conversion time was measured for large documents
such as the Jargon file.
The support for @-commands in @node directives is not
general enough to be freely used. For example, if the example above
redefined nodename somewhere in the document, makeinfo
will fail to convert it, even if invoked with the
--commands-in-node-names option.
--commands-in-node-names has no effect if the --no-validate
option is given.
makeinfo Within Emacs
You can run makeinfo in GNU Emacs Texinfo mode by using either the
makeinfo-region or the makeinfo-buffer commands. In
Texinfo mode, the commands are bound to C-c C-m C-r and C-c
C-m C-b by default.
When you invoke makeinfo-region the output goes to a temporary
buffer. When you invoke makeinfo-buffer output goes to the
file set with @setfilename (see setfilename).
The Emacs makeinfo-region and makeinfo-buffer commands
run the makeinfo program in a temporary shell buffer. If
makeinfo finds any errors, Emacs displays the error messages in
the temporary buffer.
You can parse the error messages by typing C-x `
(next-error). This causes Emacs to go to and position the
cursor on the line in the Texinfo source that makeinfo thinks
caused the error. See Running make or Compilers Generally, for more
information about using the next-error command.
In addition, you can kill the shell in which the makeinfo
command is running or make the shell buffer display its most recent
output.
makeinfo job
(from makeinfo-region or makeinfo-buffer).
makeinfo shell buffer to display its most recent
output.
(Note that the parallel commands for killing and recentering a TeX job are C-c C-t C-k and C-c C-t C-l. See Texinfo Mode Printing.)
You can specify options for makeinfo by setting the
makeinfo-options variable with either the M-x
edit-options or the M-x set-variable command, or by setting the
variable in your .emacs initialization file.
For example, you could write the following in your .emacs file:
(setq makeinfo-options
"--paragraph-indent=0 --no-split
--fill-column=70 --verbose")
texinfo-format... Commands
In GNU Emacs in Texinfo mode, you can format part or all of a Texinfo
file with the texinfo-format-region command. This formats the
current region and displays the formatted text in a temporary buffer
called *Info Region*.
Similarly, you can format a buffer with the
texinfo-format-buffer command. This command creates a new
buffer and generates the Info file in it. Typing C-x C-s will
save the Info file under the name specified by the
@setfilename line which must be near the beginning of the
Texinfo file.
texinfo-format-region
texinfo-format-buffer
The texinfo-format-region and texinfo-format-buffer
commands provide you with some error checking, and other functions can
provide you with further help in finding formatting errors. These
procedures are described in an appendix; see Catching Mistakes.
However, the makeinfo program is often faster and
provides better error checking (see makeinfo in Emacs).
You can format Texinfo files for Info using batch-texinfo-format
and Emacs Batch mode. You can run Emacs in Batch mode from any shell,
including a shell inside of Emacs. (See Command Line Switches and Arguments.)
Here is a shell command to format all the files that end in
.texinfo in the current directory:
emacs -batch -funcall batch-texinfo-format *.texinfo
Emacs processes all the files listed on the command line, even if an error occurs while attempting to format some of them.
Run batch-texinfo-format only with Emacs in Batch mode as shown;
it is not interactive. It kills the Batch mode Emacs on completion.
batch-texinfo-format is convenient if you lack makeinfo
and want to format several Texinfo files at once. When you use Batch
mode, you create a new Emacs process. This frees your current Emacs, so
you can continue working in it. (When you run
texinfo-format-region or texinfo-format-buffer, you cannot
use that Emacs for anything else until the command finishes.)
If a Texinfo file has more than 30,000 bytes,
texinfo-format-buffer automatically creates a tag table
for its Info file; makeinfo always creates a tag table. With
a tag table, Info can jump to new nodes more quickly than it can
otherwise.
In addition, if the Texinfo file contains more than about 300,000
bytes, texinfo-format-buffer and makeinfo split the
large Info file into shorter indirect subfiles of about 300,000
bytes each. Big files are split into smaller files so that Emacs does
not need to make a large buffer to hold the whole of a large Info
file; instead, Emacs allocates just enough memory for the small, split-off
file that is needed at the time. This way, Emacs avoids wasting
memory when you run Info. (Before splitting was implemented, Info
files were always kept short and include files were designed as
a way to create a single, large printed manual out of the smaller Info
files. See Include Files, for more information. Include files are
still used for very large documents, such as The Emacs Lisp
Reference Manual, in which each chapter is a separate file.)
When a file is split, Info itself makes use of a shortened version of the original file that contains just the tag table and references to the files that were split off. The split-off files are called indirect files.
The split-off files have names that are created by appending -1,
-2, -3 and so on to the file name specified by the
@setfilename command. The shortened version of the original file
continues to have the name specified by @setfilename.
At one stage in writing this document, for example, the Info file was saved
as the file test-texinfo and that file looked like this:
Info file: test-texinfo, -*-Text-*-
produced by texinfo-format-buffer
from file: new-texinfo-manual.texinfo
^_
Indirect:
test-texinfo-1: 102
test-texinfo-2: 50422
test-texinfo-3: 101300
^_^L
Tag table:
(Indirect)
Node: overview^?104
Node: info file^?1271
Node: printed manual^?4853
Node: conventions^?6855
...
(But test-texinfo had far more nodes than are shown here.) Each of
the split-off, indirect files, test-texinfo-1,
test-texinfo-2, and test-texinfo-3, is listed in this file
after the line that says Indirect:. The tag table is listed after
the line that says Tag table:.
In the list of indirect files, the number following the file name records the cumulative number of bytes in the preceding indirect files, not counting the file list itself, the tag table, or the permissions text in each file. In the tag table, the number following the node name records the location of the beginning of the node, in bytes from the beginning of the (unsplit) output.
If you are using texinfo-format-buffer to create Info files,
you may want to run the Info-validate command. (The
makeinfo command does such a good job on its own, you do not
need Info-validate.) However, you cannot run the M-x
Info-validate node-checking command on indirect files. For
information on how to prevent files from being split and how to
validate the structure of the nodes, see Using Info-validate.
Besides generating output in the Info format, you can use the
--html option to makeinfo to generate output in HTML
format, for use by web browsers (for example).
makeinfo will include segments of Texinfo source between
@ifhtml and @end ifhtml in the HTML output (but not
any of the other conditionals, by default). Source between
@html and @end html is passed without change to the
output (i.e., suppressing the normal escaping of input <,
> and & characters which have special significance in
HTML). See Conditional Commands.
The --footnote-style option is currently ignored for HTML output;
footnotes are always linked to the end of the output file.
By default, a navigation bar is inserted at the start of each node,
analogous to Info output. The --no-headers option suppresses
this if used with --no-split. Header <link> elements in
split output can support info-like navigation with browsers like Lynx
and Emacs W3 which implement this HTML 1.0 feature.
The HTML generated is mostly standard (i.e., HTML 2.0, RFC-1866).
The exception is that HTML 3.2 tables are generated from the
@multitable command, but tagged to degrade as well as possible
in browsers without table support. The HTML 4 lang
attribute on the <html> attribute is also used. (Please report
output from an error-free run of makeinfo which has browser
portability problems as a bug.)
By default, makeinfo splits HTML output into one output file
per Texinfo source node.
When splitting, the HTML output files are written into a subdirectory.
The subdirectory is named according to the name from
@setfilename with any extension removed; for example, HTML
output for @setfilename emacs.info would be written into a
subdirectory named emacs. If that directory cannot be created
for any reason, then .html is appended to the directory name, as
in emacs.html (this is necessary because sometimes the info file
is named without an extension, e.g., texinfo). If the
name.html directory can't be created either,
makeinfo gives up. In any case, the top-level output file within
the directory is always named index.html.
Monolithic output (--no-split) is named according to
@setfilename or --outfile.
@xref commands to other documents are generated assuming the
other document is available in split HTML form, and installed in the
same HTML documentation tree, at ../<info-document>/.
Cross-document node references are not supported in monolithic HTML.
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS for short) is a network standard for influencing the display of HTML documents: http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/.
By default, makeinfo includes a few simple CSS commands to
better implement the appearance of some of the environments. Here is
a couple of them:
pre.display { font-family:inherit }
pre.smalldisplay { font-family:inherit; font-size:smaller }
A full explanation of CSS is (far) beyond this manual; please see the
references above. In brief, however, this specification tells the web
browser to use a `smaller' font size for @smalldisplay text,
and to use the `inherited' font (generally a regular roman typeface)
for both @smalldisplay and @display. By default, the
HTML <pre> command uses a monospaced font.
You can influence the CSS in the HTML output with the
--css-include=file option to makeinfo. This
includes the contents file in the HTML output, as you might
expect. However, the details are somewhat tricky, to provide maximum
flexibility.
The CSS file may begin with so-called @import directives,
which link to external CSS specifications for browsers to use when
interpreting the document. Again, a full description is beyond our
scope here, but we'll describe how they work syntactically, so we can
explain how makeinfo handles them.
There can be more than one @import, but they have to come
first in the file, with only whitespace and comments interspersed, no
normal definitions. (Technical exception: an @charset
directive may precede the @import's. This does not alter
makeinfo's behavior.) Comments in CSS files are delimited
by /* ... */, as in C. An @import directive must be in
one of these two forms:
@import url(http://example.org/foo.css);
@import "http://example.net/bar.css";
As far as makeinfo is concerned, the crucial characters are
the @ at the beginning and the semicolon terminating the
directive. CSS provides for a number of different
@-directives, and makeinfo treats them all the same
way. When reading the CSS file, it simply copies any such
@-directive into the output, as follows:
makeinfo's default CSS, thus overriding it.
@import specifications (see
below), then the import's are included first (they have to come
first, according to the standard), and then makeinfo's
default CSS is included. If you need to override makeinfo's
defaults from an @import, you can do so with the !
important CSS construct, as in:
pre.smallexample { font-size: inherit ! important }
@import and inline CSS
specifications, the @import's are included first, then
makeinfo's defaults, and lastly the inline CSS from
file.
If the CSS file is malformed or erroneous, makeinfo's output
is unspecified. makeinfo does not try to interpret the
meaning of the CSS file in any way; it just looks for the special
@ and ; characters and blindly copies the text into the
output. Comments in the CSS file may or may not be included in the
output.
Info files are usually kept in the info directory. You can read
Info files using the standalone Info program or the Info reader built
into Emacs. (see info, for an introduction to Info.)
dir
For Info to work, the info directory must contain a file that
serves as a top level directory for the Info system. By convention,
this file is called dir. (You can find the location of this file
within Emacs by typing C-h i to enter Info and then typing
C-x C-f to see the pathname to the info directory.)
The dir file is itself an Info file. It contains the top level
menu for all the Info files in the system. The menu looks like
this:
* Menu:
* Info: (info). Documentation browsing system.
* Emacs: (emacs). The extensible, self-documenting
text editor.
* Texinfo: (texinfo). With one source file, make
either a printed manual using
@TeX{} or an Info file.
...
Each of these menu entries points to the `Top' node of the Info file that is named in parentheses. (The menu entry does not need to specify the `Top' node, since Info goes to the `Top' node if no node name is mentioned. See Nodes in Other Info Files.)
Thus, the Info entry points to the `Top' node of the
info file and the Emacs entry points to the `Top' node
of the emacs file.
In each of the Info files, the `Up' pointer of the `Top' node refers
back to the dir file. For example, the line for the `Top'
node of the Emacs manual looks like this in Info:
File: emacs Node: Top, Up: (DIR), Next: Distrib
In this case, the dir file name is written in upper case
letters--it can be written in either upper or lower case. This is not
true in general, it is a special case for dir.
To add a new Info file to your system, you must write a menu entry to
add to the menu in the dir file in the info directory.
For example, if you were adding documentation for GDB, you would write
the following new entry:
* GDB: (gdb). The source-level C debugger.
The first part of the menu entry is the menu entry name, followed by a colon. The second part is the name of the Info file, in parentheses, followed by a period. The third part is the description.
The name of an Info file often has a .info extension. Thus, the
Info file for GDB might be called either gdb or gdb.info.
The Info reader programs automatically try the file name both with and
without .info11; so it is better to avoid
clutter and not to write .info explicitly in the menu entry. For
example, the GDB menu entry should use just gdb for the file
name, not gdb.info.
If an Info file is not in the info directory, there are three
ways to specify its location:
dir file as the second part of the menu.
dir
file, in its directory; and then add the name of that directory to the
Info-directory-list variable in your personal or site
initialization file.
This variable tells Emacs where to look for dir files (the files
must be named dir). Emacs merges the files named dir from
each of the listed directories. (In Emacs version 18, you can set the
Info-directory variable to the name of only one
directory.)
INFOPATH environment
variable in your .profile or .cshrc initialization file.
(Only you and others who set this environment variable will be able to
find Info files whose location is specified this way.)
For example, to reach a test file in the /home/bob/info
directory, you could add an entry like this to the menu in the
standard dir file:
* Test: (/home/bob/info/info-test). Bob's own test file.
In this case, the absolute file name of the info-test file is
written as the second part of the menu entry.
Alternatively, you could write the following in your .emacs file:
(require 'info)
(setq Info-directory-list
(cons (expand-file-name "/home/bob/info")
Info-directory-list))
This tells Emacs to merge the system dir file with the dir
file in /home/bob/info. Thus, Info will list the
/home/bob/info/info-test file as a menu entry in the
/home/bob/info/dir file. Emacs does the merging only when
M-x info is first run, so if you want to set
Info-directory-list in an Emacs session where you've already run
info, you must (setq Info-dir-contents nil) to force Emacs
to recompose the dir file.
Finally, you can tell Info where to look by setting the INFOPATH
environment variable in your shell startup file, such as .cshrc,
.profile or autoexec.bat. If you use a Bourne-compatible
shell such as sh or bash for your shell command
interpreter, you set the INFOPATH environment variable in the
.profile initialization file; but if you use csh or
tcsh, you set the variable in the .cshrc initialization
file. On MS-DOS/MS-Windows systems, you must set INFOPATH in
your autoexec.bat file or in the Registry. Each type of shell
uses a different syntax.
.cshrc file, you could set the INFOPATH
variable as follows:
setenv INFOPATH .:~/info:/usr/local/emacs/info
.profile file, you would achieve the same effect by
writing:
INFOPATH=.:$HOME/info:/usr/local/emacs/info
export INFOPATH
autoexec.bat file, you write this command12:
set INFOPATH=.;%HOME%/info;c:/usr/local/emacs/info
The . indicates the current directory as usual. Emacs uses the
INFOPATH environment variable to initialize the value of Emacs's
own Info-directory-list variable. The stand-alone Info reader
merges any files named dir in any directory listed in the
INFOPATH variable into a single menu presented to you in the node
called (dir)Top.
However you set INFOPATH, if its last character is a
colon13, this
is replaced by the default (compiled-in) path. This gives you a way to
augment the default path with new directories without having to list all
the standard places. For example (using sh syntax):
INFOPATH=/local/info:
export INFOPATH
will search /local/info first, then the standard directories.
Leading or doubled colons are not treated specially.
When you create your own dir file for use with
Info-directory-list or INFOPATH, it's easiest to start by
copying an existing dir file and replace all the text after the
* Menu: with your desired entries. That way, the punctuation and
special CTRL-_ characters that Info needs will be present.
When you install an Info file onto your system, you can use the program
install-info to update the Info directory file dir.
Normally the makefile for the package runs install-info, just
after copying the Info file into its proper installed location.
In order for the Info file to work with install-info, you include
the commands @dircategory and
@direntry...@end direntry in the Texinfo source
file. Use @direntry to specify the menu entries to add to the
Info directory file, and use @dircategory to specify which part
of the Info directory to put it in. Here is how these commands are used
in this manual:
@dircategory Texinfo documentation system
@direntry
* Texinfo: (texinfo). The GNU documentation format.
* install-info: (texinfo)Invoking install-info. ...
...
@end direntry
Here's what this produces in the Info file:
INFO-DIR-SECTION Texinfo documentation system
START-INFO-DIR-ENTRY
* Texinfo: (texinfo). The GNU documentation format.
* install-info: (texinfo)Invoking install-info. ...
...
END-INFO-DIR-ENTRY
The install-info program sees these lines in the Info file, and
that is how it knows what to do.
Always use the @direntry and @dircategory commands near
the beginning of the Texinfo input, before the first @node
command. If you use them later on in the input, install-info
will not notice them.
If you use @dircategory more than once in the Texinfo source,
each usage specifies the `current' category; any subsequent
@direntry commands will add to that category.
When choosing the categories for @dircategory, we recommend
consulting the http://www.gnu.org/directory. If your program is not listed there, or
listed incorrectly or incompletely, please report the situation to the
directory maintainers (bug-directory@gnu.org) so that the
category names can be kept in sync.
Here are a few examples (see the util/dir-example file in the
Texinfo distribution for large sample dir file):
Emacs
Localization
Printing
Software development
Software libraries
Text creation and manipulation
Each `Invoking' node for every program installed should have a
corresponding @direntry. This lets users easily find the
documentation for the different programs they can run, as with the
traditional man system.
install-info
install-info inserts menu entries from an Info file into the
top-level dir file in the Info system (see the previous sections
for an explanation of how the dir file works). It's most often
run as part of software installation, or when constructing a dir file
for all manuals on a system. Synopsis:
install-info [option]... [info-file [dir-file]]
If info-file or dir-file are not specified, the options
(described below) that define them must be. There are no compile-time
defaults, and standard input is never used. install-info can
read only one Info file and write only one dir file per invocation.
If dir-file (however specified) does not exist,
install-info creates it if possible (with no entries).
If any input file is compressed with gzip (see Invoking gzip), install-info automatically uncompresses it
for reading. And if dir-file is compressed, install-info
also automatically leaves it compressed after writing any changes.
If dir-file itself does not exist, install-info tries to
open dir-file.gz.
Options:
--delete
.info in either one). Don't insert any new entries.
--dir-file=name-d name--entry=text-e text--help
-h
--info-file=file-i file--info-dir=dir-D dirdir resides.
Equivalent to --dir-file=dir/dir.
--item=text--entry=text--quiet
--remove
-r
--delete.
--section=sec-s sec--version
-V
Here is an alphabetical list of the @-commands in Texinfo. Square
brackets, [ ], indicate optional arguments; an ellipsis,
..., indicates repeated text.
@whitespace@ followed by a space, tab, or newline produces a normal,
stretchable, interword space. See Multiple Spaces.
@!
@"
@'
@*
@* with
an @refill command. See Line Breaks.
@,{c}
@-
@.
@:
@=
@?
@@
@.
See Inserting @ and braces.
@\
\) inside @math.
See math.
@^
@`
@{
{.
See Inserting @ and braces.
@}
}.@~
@AA{}
@aa{}
@acronym{abbrev}
acronym.
@AE{}
@ae{}
@afivepaper
@afourlatex
@afourpaper
@afourwide
@alias new=existing@new@existing@anchor{name}
@anchor.
@appendix title@unnumbered and @appendix Commands.
@appendixsec title@appendixsection title@appendixsection is a longer
spelling of the @appendixsec command. See Section Commands.
@appendixsubsec title@appendixsubsubsec title@asis
@table, @ftable, and @vtable to
print the table's first column without highlighting ("as is").
See Making a Two-column Table.
@author author@title and @author Commands.
@b{text}
@bullet{}
@bullet.
@bye
@bye command. See Ending a File.
@c comment@comment. See Comments.
@cartouche
@end cartouche. No effect in
Info. See Drawing Cartouches Around Examples.)
@center line-of-text@center.
@centerchap line-of-text@chapter, but centers the chapter title. See @chapter.
@chapheading title@majorheading and @chapheading.
@chapter title@chapter.
@cindex entry@cite{reference}
@cite.
@clear flag@ifset flag@end ifset commands, and preventing
@value{flag} from expanding to the value to which
flag is set.
See @set @clear @value.
@code{sample-code}
@code.
@command{command-name}
ls.
See @command.
@comment comment@c.
See Comments.
@contents
@copyright{}
@copyright{}.
@defcodeindex index-name@code font. See Defining New Indices.
@defcv category class name@defcvx category class name@deffn category name arguments...
@deffnx category name arguments...
@deffn takes as arguments the
category of entity being described, the name of this particular
entity, and its arguments, if any. See Definition Commands.
@defindex index-name@definfoenclose newcmd, before, after,
@defivar class instance-variable-name@defivarx class instance-variable-name@defcv
{Instance Variable} .... See Definition Commands, and
Def Cmds in Detail.
@defmac macroname arguments...
@defmacx macroname arguments...
@deffn Macro .... See Definition Commands, and
Def Cmds in Detail.
@defmethod class method-name arguments...
@defmethodx class method-name arguments...
@defop Method .... Takes as
arguments the name of the class of the method, the name of the
method, and its arguments, if any. See Definition Commands, and
Def Cmds in Detail.
@defop category class name arguments...
@defopx category class name arguments...
@defop takes as arguments the overall name of the category of
operation, the name of the class of the operation, the name of the
operation, and its arguments, if any. See Definition Commands, and Abstract Objects.
@defopt option-name@defoptx option-name@defvr {User Option} .... See Definition Commands, and
Def Cmds in Detail.
@defspec special-form-name arguments...
@defspecx special-form-name arguments...
@deffn {Special Form} .... See Definition Commands,
and Def Cmds in Detail.
@deftp category name-of-type attributes...
@deftpx category name-of-type attributes...
@deftp takes as arguments
the category, the name of the type (which is a word like int or
float), and then the names of attributes of objects of that type.
See Definition Commands, and Data Types.
@deftypefn classification data-type name arguments...
@deftypefnx classification data-type name arguments...
@deftypefn takes as arguments the
classification of entity being described, the type, the name of the
entity, and its arguments, if any. See Definition Commands, and
Def Cmds in Detail.
@deftypefun data-type function-name arguments...
@deftypefunx data-type function-name arguments...
@deftypefn Function ....
See Definition Commands, and Def Cmds in Detail.
@deftypeivar class data-type variable-name@deftypeivarx class data-type variable-name@deftypemethod class data-type method-name arguments...
@deftypemethodx class data-type method-name arguments...
@deftypeop category class data-type name arguments...
@deftypeopx category class data-type name arguments...
@deftypevar data-type variable-name@deftypevarx data-type variable-name@deftypevr Variable .... See Definition Commands, and Def Cmds in Detail.
@deftypevr classification data-type name@deftypevrx classification data-type name@defun function-name arguments...
@defunx function-name arguments...
@deffn Function .... See Definition Commands, and
Def Cmds in Detail.
@defvar variable-name@defvarx variable-name@defvr Variable .... See Definition Commands, and
Def Cmds in Detail.
@defvr category name@defvrx category name@defvr takes
as arguments the category of the entity and the name of the entity.
See Definition Commands,
and Def Cmds in Detail.
@detailmenu
makeinfo confusion stemming from the detailed node listing
in a master menu. See Master Menu Parts.
@dfn{term}
@dfn.
@dircategory dirpart@direntry
@end direntry. See Installing Dir Entries.
@display
@example (indent text, do not
fill), but do not select a new font. Pair with @end display.
See @display.
@dmn{dimension}
@dmn.
@documentdescription
@end documentdescription. See @documentdescription.
@documentencoding enc@documentencoding.
@documentlanguage CC@documentlanguage.
@dotaccent{c}
@dots{}
....
See @dots.
@email{address[, displayed-text]}
@email.
@emph{text}
@end environment@end example. See @-commands.
@env{environment-variable}
PATH.
See @env.
@enddots{}
@dots{}.
@enumerate [number-or-letter]
@item for each entry.
Optionally, start list with number-or-letter. Pair with
@end enumerate. See @enumerate.
@equiv{}
==. See Equivalence.
@error{}
error-->. See Error Glyph.
@evenfooting [left] @| [center] @| [right]
@evenheading [left] @| [center] @| [right]
@everyfooting [left] @| [center] @| [right]
@everyheading [left] @| [center] @| [right]
@example
@end example. See @example.
@exampleindent indent@exclamdown{}
@exdent line-of-text@expansion{}
==>.
See ==> Indicating an Expansion.
@file{filename}
@file.
@finalout
@findex entry@flushleft
@flushright
@end flushleft.
@flushright analogous.
See @flushleft and @flushright.
@footnote{text-of-footnote}
@footnotestyle styleend for the end
node style or separate for the separate node style.
See Footnotes.
@format
@display, but do not narrow the
margins. Pair with @end format. See @example.
@ftable formatting-command@item for each entry.
Automatically enter each of the items in the first column into the
index of functions. Pair with @end ftable. The same as
@table, except for indexing. See @ftable and @vtable.
@group
@end group. Not relevant to Info. See @group.
@H{c}
@heading title@headings on-off-single-double@headings Command.
@html
@end html. See Raw Formatter Commands.
@hyphenation{hy-phen-a-ted words}
@- and @hyphenation.
@i{text}
@ifclear flag@ifclear flag@end
ifclear command.
See @set @clear @value.
@ifhtml
@ifinfo
@ifhtml text appears only in the HTML
output. @ifinfo output appears in both Info and (for historical
compatibility) plain text output . Pair with @end ifhtml
resp. @end ifinfo. See Conditionals.
@ifnothtml
@ifnotinfo
@ifnotplaintext
@ifnottex
@ifnotxml
@ifnothtml text is omitted from html output, etc. The exception
is @ifnotinfo text, which is omitted from plain text output as
well as Info output. Pair with the corresponding @end
ifnotformat@ifplaintext
@end ifplaintext. See Conditionals.
@ifset flag@ifset flag@end ifset
command.
See @set @clear @value.
@iftex
@end iftex.
See Conditionally Visible Text.
@ifxml
@end ifxml. See Conditionals.
@ignore
@end ignore.
See Comments and Ignored Text.
@image{filename, [width], [height], [alt], [ext]}
.ext@include filename@inforef{node-name, [entry-name], info-file-name}
@inforef.
\input macro-definitions-filetexinfo macro definitions file. The backslash in \input
is used instead of an @ because TeX does not
recognize @ until after it has read the definitions file.
See Texinfo File Header.
@item
@itemize and
@enumerate; indicate the beginning of the text of a first column
entry for @table, @ftable, and @vtable.
See Lists and Tables.
@itemize mark-generating-character-or-command@end
itemize. See @itemize.
@itemx
@item but do not generate extra vertical space above the
item text. See @itemx.
@kbd{keyboard-characters}
@kbd.
@kbdinputstyle style@kbd should use a font distinct from @code.
See @kbd.
@key{key-name}
@key.
@kindex entry@L{}
@l{}
@lisp
@end lisp. See @lisp.
@lowersections
@raisesections and @lowersections.
@macro macroname {params}
@macroname{params}.
Only supported by makeinfo and texi2dvi. See Defining Macros.
@majorheading title@chapheading command. In Info, the chapter
heading line is underlined with asterisks. See @majorheading and @chapheading.
@math{mathematical-expression}
@math: Inserting Mathematical Expressions.
@menu
@end menu. See Menus.
@minus{}
@minus.
@multitable column-width-spec@end multitable.
See Multitable Column Widths.
@need n@need.
@node name, next, previous, up@node.
@noindent
@noindent.
@novalidate
@setfilename. See Pointer Validation.
@O{}
@o{}
@oddfooting [left] @| [center] @| [right]
@oddheading [left] @| [center] @| [right]
@OE{}
@oe{}
@option{option-name}
-l or --help.
See @option.
@page
@page.
@pagesizes [width][, height]
@paragraphindent indentasis.
See Paragraph Indenting.
@pindex entry@point{}
-!-. See Indicating Point in a Buffer.
@pounds{}
@pounds{}.
@print{}
-|. See Print Glyph.
@printindex index-name@pxref{node-name, [entry], [topic-or-title], [info-file], [manual]}
@pxref.
@questiondown{}
@quotation
@end quotation. See @quotation.
@r{text}
@raisesections
@raisesections and @lowersections.
@ref{node-name, [entry], [topic-or-title], [info-file], [manual]}
@ref.
@refill
@result{}
=>. See @result.
@ringaccent{c}
@samp{text}
@samp.
@sc{text}
@section title@section.
@set flag [string]
@ifset flag@end ifset commands. Optionally, set value of flag to
string.
See @set @clear @value.
@setchapternewpage on-off-odd@setchapternewpage.
@setcontentsaftertitlepage
@end titlepage even if the
@contents command is not there. See Contents.
@setfilename info-file-name@setfilename.
@setshortcontentsaftertitlepage
@end titlepage
command even if the @shortcontents command is not there.
See Contents.
@settitle title<head>.
See @settitle.
@shortcontents
@summarycontents. See Generating a Table of Contents.
@shorttitlepage title@titlepage.
@smallbook
@smalldisplay
@smallexample (narrow margins, no
filling), but do not select the fixed-width font. Pair with @end
smalldisplay. See small.
@smallexample
@example. Pair with @end smallexample.
See small.
@smallformat
@smalldisplay, but do not narrow
the margins. Pair with @end smallformat. See small.
@smalllisp
@smallexample. Pair
with @end smalllisp. See small.
@sp n@sp.
@ss{}
@strong {text}
@subheading title@unnumberedsubsec @appendixsubsec @subheading.
@subsection title@subsection.
@subsubheading title@subsubsection title@subtitle title@title @subtitle and @author Commands.
@summarycontents
@shortcontents. See Generating a Table of Contents.
@syncodeindex from-index into-index@code font. See Combining Indices.
@synindex from-index into-index@t{text}
@tab
@table formatting-command@item for each entry. Write
each first column entry on the same line as @item. First
column entries are printed in the font resulting from
formatting-command. Pair with @end table.
See Making a Two-column Table.
Also see @ftable and @vtable,
and @itemx.
@TeX{}
@tex
@end tex. See Raw Formatter Commands.
@thischapter
@thischaptername
@thisfile
@thispage
@thistitle
@tie{}
@tie{}.
@tieaccent{cc}
@tindex entry@title title@title @subtitle and @author Commands.
@titlefont{text}
@titlefont @center and @sp Commands.
@titlepage
@end titlepage. Nothing between
@titlepage and @end titlepage appears in Info.
See @titlepage.
@today{}
@top titlemakeinfo, identify the
topmost @node in the file, which must be written on the line
immediately preceding the @top command. Used for
makeinfo's node pointer insertion feature. The title is
underlined with asterisks. Both the @node line and the @top
line normally should be enclosed by @ifnottex and @end
ifnottex. In TeX and texinfo-format-buffer, the @top
command is merely a synonym for @unnumbered. See Creating Pointers with makeinfo.
@u{c}
@ubaraccent{c}
@udotaccent{c}
@unnumbered title@unnumbered and @appendix.
@unnumberedsec title@unnumberedsubsec title@unnumberedsubsec @appendixsubsec @subheading.
@unnumberedsubsubsec title@uref{url[, displayed-text][, replacement}
@uref.
@url{url}
@url.
@v{c}
@value{flag}
@set
flag@set @clear @value.
@var{metasyntactic-variable}
@verb{delim literal delim}
verb.
@verbatim
@end verbatim. See verbatim.
@verbatiminclude filenameverbatiminclude.
@vindex entry@vskip amount0pt plus
1filll. (Note spelling of filll.) @vskip may be used
only in contexts ignored for Info. See Copyright.
@vtable formatting-command@item for each entry.
Automatically enter each of the items in the first column into the
index of variables. Pair with @end vtable. The same as
@table, except for indexing. See @ftable and @vtable.
@w{text}
@w with an @refill command.
See @w.
@xref{node-name, [entry], [topic-or-title], [info-file], [manual]}
@xref.
Here are some tips for writing Texinfo documentation:
Write many index entries, in different ways. Readers like indices; they are helpful and convenient.
Although it is easiest to write index entries as you write the body of the text, some people prefer to write entries afterwards. In either case, write an entry before the paragraph to which it applies. This way, an index entry points to the first page of a paragraph that is split across pages.
Here are more hints we have found valuable:
In the example that follows, a blank line comes after the index entry for "Leaping":
@section The Dog and the Fox
@cindex Jumping, in general
@cindex Leaping
@cindex Dog, lazy, jumped over
@cindex Lazy dog jumped over
@cindex Fox, jumps over dog
@cindex Quick fox jumps over dog
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
(Note that the example shows entries for the same concept that are
written in different ways--Lazy dog, and Dog, lazy--so
readers can look up the concept in different ways.)
@table command and after an
@end table command; but never insert a blank line after an
@table command or before an @end table command.
For example,
Types of fox:
@table @samp
@item Quick
Jump over lazy dogs.
@item Brown
Also jump over lazy dogs.
@end table
@noindent
On the other hand, ...
Insert blank lines before and after @itemize ... @end
itemize and @enumerate ... @end enumerate in the
same way.
Complete phrases are easier to read than ...
Include edition numbers, version numbers, and dates in the
@copying text (for people reading the Texinfo file, and for the
legal copyright in the output files). Then use @insertcopying
in the @titlepage section (for people reading the printed
output) and the Top node (for people reading the online output).
It is easiest to do this using @set and @value.
See @value Example, and GNU Sample Texts.
Definition commands are @deffn, @defun,
@defmac, and the like, and enable you to write descriptions in
a uniform format.
@table ... @end table in an appendix that
contains a summary of functions, not @deffn or other definition
commands.
x or
i in upper case.
@TeX{} command. Note the uppercase
T and X. This command causes the formatters to
typeset the name according to the wishes of Donald Knuth, who wrote
TeX.
Do not use spaces to format a Texinfo file, except inside of
@example ... @end example and similar commands.
For example, TeX fills the following:
@kbd{C-x v}
@kbd{M-x vc-next-action}
Perform the next logical operation
on the version-controlled file
corresponding to the current buffer.
so it looks like this:
In this case, the text should be formatted with
@table, @item, and @itemx, to create a table.
---
@code around Lisp symbols, including command names.
For example,
The main function is @code{vc-next-action}, ...
s immediately after an
@code. Such letters look bad.
@var around meta-variables. Do not write angle brackets
around them.
---, to indicate a long dash. TeX
typesets these as a long dash and the Info formatters reduce three
hyphens to two.
Place periods and other punctuation marks outside of quotations, unless the punctuation is part of the quotation. This practice goes against publishing conventions in the United States, but enables the reader to distinguish between the contents of the quotation and the whole passage.
For example, you should write the following sentence with the period outside the end quotation marks:
Evidently, au is an abbreviation for ``author''.
since au does not serve as an abbreviation for
author. (with a period following the word).
For example, in the following, the terms "check in", "register" and "delta" are all appearing for the first time; the example sentence should be rewritten so they are understandable.
The major function assists you in checking in a file to your version control system and registering successive sets of changes to it as deltas.
@dfn command around a word being introduced, to indicate
that the reader should not expect to know the meaning already, and
should expect to learn the meaning from this passage.
Absolutely never use @pxref except in the special context for
which it is designed: inside parentheses, with the closing parenthesis
following immediately after the closing brace. One formatter
automatically inserts closing punctuation and the other does not. This
means that the output looks right both in printed output and in an Info
file, but only when the command is used inside parentheses.
You can invoke programs such as Emacs, GCC, and gawk from a
shell. The documentation for each program should contain a section that
describes this. Unfortunately, if the node names and titles for these
sections are all different, they are difficult for users to find.
So, there is a convention to name such sections with a phrase beginning with the word `Invoking', as in `Invoking Emacs'; this way, users can find the section easily.
When you use @example to describe a C function's calling
conventions, use the ANSI C syntax, like this:
void dld_init (char *@var{path});
And in the subsequent discussion, refer to the argument values by
writing the same argument names, again highlighted with
@var.
Avoid the obsolete style that looks like this:
#include <dld.h>
dld_init (path)
char *path;
Also, it is best to avoid writing #include above the
declaration just to indicate that the function is declared in a
header file. The practice may give the misimpression that the
#include belongs near the declaration of the function. Either
state explicitly which header file holds the declaration or, better
yet, name the header file used for a group of functions at the
beginning of the section that describes the functions.
Here are several examples of bad writing to avoid:
In this example, say, " ... you must @dfn{check
in} the new version." That flows better.
When you are done editing the file, you must perform a
@dfn{check in}.
In the following example, say, "... makes a unified interface such as VC mode possible."
SCCS, RCS and other version-control systems all perform similar functions in broadly similar ways (it is this resemblance which makes a unified control mode like this possible).
And in this example, you should specify what `it' refers to:
If you are working with other people, it assists in coordinating everyone's changes so they do not step on each other.
X were a Greek `chi', as the last
sound in the name `Bach'. But pronounce Texinfo as in `speck':
"teckinfo".
@bye. None of the formatters process text after the
@bye; it is as if the text were within @ignore ...
@end ignore.
The first example is from the first chapter (see Short Sample), given here in its entirety, without commentary. The second includes the full texts to be used in GNU manuals.
Here is a complete, short sample Texinfo file, without any commentary. You can see this file, with comments, in the first chapter. See Short Sample.
In a nutshell: The makeinfo program transforms a Texinfo
source file such as this into an Info file or HTML; and TeX typesets
it for a printed manual.
\input texinfo @c -*-texinfo-*-
@c %**start of header
@setfilename sample.info
@settitle Sample Manual 1.0
@c %**end of header
@copying
This is a short example of a complete Texinfo file.
Copyright (C) 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
@end copying
@titlepage
@title Sample Title
@page
@vskip 0pt plus 1filll
@insertcopying
@end titlepage
@c Output the table of the contents at the beginning.
@contents
@ifnottex
@node Top
@top GNU Sample
@insertcopying
@end ifnottex
@menu
* First Chapter:: The first chapter is the
only chapter in this sample.
* Index:: Complete index.
@end menu
@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
@node Index
@unnumbered Index
@printindex cp
@bye
Following is a sample Texinfo document with the full texts that should be used in GNU manuals.
As well as the legal texts, it also serves as a practical example of how many elements in a GNU system can affect the manual. If you're not familiar with all these different elements, don't worry. They're not required and a perfectly good manual can be written without them. They're included here nonetheless because many manuals do (or could) benefit from them.
See Short Sample, for a minimal example of a Texinfo file. See Beginning a File, for a full explanation of that minimal example.
Here are some notes on the example:
$Id: comment is for the CVS (see Overview) or RCS (see rcsintro(1)) version control
systems, which expand it into a string such as:
$Id: texinfo.txi,v 1.48 2003/06/02 12:32:28 karl Exp $
(This is useful in all sources that use version control, not just manuals.)
You may wish to include the $Id: comment in the @copying
text, if you want a completely unambiguous reference to the
documentation version.
version.texi in the @include command is maintained
automatically by Automake (see Introduction). It sets the VERSION and UPDATED values used
elsewhere. If your distribution doesn't use Automake, but you do use
Emacs, you may find the time-stamp.el package helpful (see Time Stamps).
@syncodeindex command reflects the recommendation to use
only one index where possible, to make it easier for readers to look up
index entries.
@dircategory is for constructing the Info directory.
See Installing Dir Entries, which includes a variety of recommended
category names.
fdl.texi file
is available on the GNU machines and in the Texinfo and other GNU
source distributions.
The FDL provides for omitting itself under certain conditions, but in that case the sample texts given here have to be modified. See GNU Free Documentation License.
Here is the sample document:
\input texinfo @c -*-texinfo-*-
@comment $Id: texinfo.txi,v 1.48 2003/06/02 12:32:28 karl Exp $
@comment %**start of header
@setfilename sample.info
@include version.texi
@settitle GNU Sample @value{VERSION}
@syncodeindex pg cp
@comment %**end of header
@copying
This manual is for GNU Sample
(version @value{VERSION}, @value{UPDATED}),
which is an example in the Texinfo documentation.
Copyright @copyright{} 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
@quotation
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 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 freedom to copy and modify
this GNU Manual, like GNU software. Copies published by the Free
Software Foundation raise funds for GNU development.''
@end quotation
@end copying
@dircategory Texinfo documentation system
@direntry
* sample: (sample)Invoking sample.
@end direntry
@titlepage
@title GNU Sample
@subtitle for version @value{VERSION}, @value{UPDATED}
@author A.U. Thor (@email{bug-texinfo@@gnu.org})
@page
@vskip 0pt plus 1filll
@insertcopying
@end titlepage
@contents
@ifnottex
@node Top
@top GNU Sample
@insertcopying
@end ifnottex
@menu
* Invoking sample::
* Copying This Manual::
* Index::
@end menu
@node Invoking sample
@chapter Invoking sample
@pindex sample
@cindex invoking @command{sample}
This is a sample manual. There is no sample program to
invoke, but if there was, you could see its basic usage
and command line options here.
@node Copying This Manual
@appendix Copying This Manual
@menu
* GNU Free Documentation License:: License for copying this manual.
@end menu
@include fdl.texi
@node Index
@unnumbered Index
@printindex cp
@bye
For software manuals and other documentation, it is important to use a license permitting free redistribution and updating, so that when a free program is changed, the documentation can be updated as well.
On the other hand, for documents that express your personal views, feelings or experiences, it is more appropriate to use a license permitting only verbatim copying.
Here is sample text for such a license permitting verbatim copying only. This is just the license text itself. For a complete sample document, see the previous sections.
@copying
This document is a sample for allowing verbatim copying only.
Copyright @copyright{} 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
@quotation
Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies
of this entire document without royalty provided the
copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved.
@end quotation
@end copying
For software manuals and other documentation, it is important to use a license permitting free redistribution and updating, so that when a free program is changed, the documentation can be updated as well.
On the other hand, for small supporting files, short manuals (under 300 lines long) and rough documentation (README files, INSTALL files, etc.), the full FDL would be overkill. They can use a simple all-permissive license.
Here is sample text for such an all-permissive license. This is just the license text itself. For a complete sample document, see the previous sections.
Copyright © 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
notice and this notice are preserved.
When TeX or an Info formatting command sees an @include
command in a Texinfo file, it processes the contents of the file named
by the command and incorporates them into the DVI or Info file being
created. Index entries from the included file are incorporated into
the indices of the output file.
Include files let you keep a single large document as a collection of conveniently small parts.
To include another file within a Texinfo file, write the
@include command at the beginning of a line and follow it on
the same line by the name of a file to be included. For example:
@include buffers.texi
The name of the file is taken literally, with a single exception:
@value{var} references are expanded. This makes it
possible to reliably include files in other directories in a
distribution. See @verbatiminclude, for
an example.
An included file should simply be a segment of text that you expect to
be included as is into the overall or outer Texinfo file; it
should not contain the standard beginning and end parts of a Texinfo
file. In particular, you should not start an included file with a
line saying \input texinfo; if you do, that phrase is inserted
into the output file as is. Likewise, you should not end an included
file with an @bye command; nothing after @bye is
formatted.
In the past, you were required to write an @setfilename line at the
beginning of an included file, but no longer. Now, it does not matter
whether you write such a line. If an @setfilename line exists
in an included file, it is ignored.
Conventionally, an included file begins with an @node line that
is followed by an @chapter line. Each included file is one
chapter. This makes it easy to use the regular node and menu creating
and updating commands to create the node pointers and menus within the
included file. However, the simple Emacs node and menu creating and
updating commands do not work with multiple Texinfo files. Thus you
cannot use these commands to fill in the `Next', `Previous', and `Up'
pointers of the @node line that begins the included file. Also,
you cannot use the regular commands to create a master menu for the
whole file. Either you must insert the menus and the `Next',
`Previous', and `Up' pointers by hand, or you must use the GNU Emacs
Texinfo mode command, texinfo-multiple-files-update, that is
designed for @include files.
texinfo-multiple-files-updateGNU Emacs Texinfo mode provides the texinfo-multiple-files-update
command. This command creates or updates `Next', `Previous', and `Up'
pointers of included files as well as those in the outer or overall
Texinfo file, and it creates or updates a main menu in the outer file.
Depending whether you call it with optional arguments, the command
updates only the pointers in the first @node line of the
included files or all of them:
@node line in each file included in an outer or overall
Texinfo file.
@node line in each
included file.
texinfo-master-menu with an argument when you are
working with just one file.
Note the use of the prefix argument in interactive use: with a regular
prefix argument, just C-u, the
texinfo-multiple-files-update command inserts a master menu;
with a numeric prefix argument, such as C-u 8, the command
updates every pointer and menu in all the files and then inserts a
master menu.
If you plan to use the texinfo-multiple-files-update command,
the outer Texinfo file that lists included files within it should
contain nothing but the beginning and end parts of a Texinfo file, and
a number of @include commands listing the included files. It
should not even include indices, which should be listed in an included
file of their own.
Moreover, each of the included files must contain exactly one highest
level node (conventionally, @chapter or equivalent),
and this node must be the first node in the included file.
Furthermore, each of these highest level nodes in each included file
must be at the same hierarchical level in the file structure.
Usually, each is an @chapter, an @appendix, or an
@unnumbered node. Thus, normally, each included file contains
one, and only one, chapter or equivalent-level node.
The outer file should contain only one node, the `Top' node. It
should not contain any nodes besides the single `Top' node. The
texinfo-multiple-files-update command will not process
them.
@includeHere is an example of an outer Texinfo file with @include files
within it before running texinfo-multiple-files-update, which
would insert a main or master menu:
\input texinfo @c -*-texinfo-*-
@setfilename include-example.info
@settitle Include Example
... See Sample Texinfo Files, for
examples of the rest of the frontmatter ...
@ifnottex
@node Top
@top Include Example
@end ifnottex
@include foo.texinfo
@include bar.texinfo
@include concept-index.texinfo
@bye
An included file, such as foo.texinfo, might look like this:
@node First
@chapter First Chapter
Contents of first chapter ...
The full contents of concept-index.texinfo might be as simple as this:
@node Concept Index
@unnumbered Concept Index
@printindex cp
The outer Texinfo source file for The GNU Emacs Lisp Reference
Manual is named elisp.texi. This outer file contains a master
menu with 417 entries and a list of 41 @include
files.
When Info was first created, it was customary to create many small Info files on one subject. Each Info file was formatted from its own Texinfo source file. This custom meant that Emacs did not need to make a large buffer to hold the whole of a large Info file when someone wanted information; instead, Emacs allocated just enough memory for the small Info file that contained the particular information sought. This way, Emacs could avoid wasting memory.
References from one file to another were made by referring to the file
name as well as the node name. (See Referring to Other Info Files. Also, see @xref with Four and Five Arguments.)
Include files were designed primarily as a way to create a single,
large printed manual out of several smaller Info files. In a printed
manual, all the references were within the same document, so TeX
could automatically determine the references' page numbers. The Info
formatting commands used include files only for creating joint
indices; each of the individual Texinfo files had to be formatted for
Info individually. (Each, therefore, required its own
@setfilename line.)
However, because large Info files are now split automatically, it is no longer necessary to keep them small.
Nowadays, multiple Texinfo files are used mostly for large documents, such as The GNU Emacs Lisp Reference Manual, and for projects in which several different people write different sections of a document simultaneously.
In addition, the Info formatting commands have been extended to work
with the @include command so as to create a single large Info
file that is split into smaller files if necessary. This means that
you can write menus and cross references without naming the different
Texinfo files.
Most printed manuals contain headings along the top of every page except the title and copyright pages. Some manuals also contain footings. (Headings and footings have no meaning to Info, which is not paginated.)
Texinfo provides standard page heading formats for manuals that are printed on one side of each sheet of paper and for manuals that are printed on both sides of the paper. Typically, you will use these formats, but you can specify your own format if you wish.
In addition, you can specify whether chapters should begin on a new page, or merely continue the same page as the previous chapter; and if chapters begin on new pages, you can specify whether they must be odd-numbered pages.
By convention, a book is printed on both sides of each sheet of paper. When you open a book, the right-hand page is odd-numbered, and chapters begin on right-hand pages--a preceding left-hand page is left blank if necessary. Reports, however, are often printed on just one side of paper, and chapters begin on a fresh page immediately following the end of the preceding chapter. In short or informal reports, chapters often do not begin on a new page at all, but are separated from the preceding text by a small amount of whitespace.
The @setchapternewpage command controls whether chapters begin
on new pages, and whether one of the standard heading formats is used.
In addition, Texinfo has several heading and footing commands that you
can use to generate your own heading and footing formats.
In Texinfo, headings and footings are single lines at the tops and bottoms of pages; you cannot create multiline headings or footings. Each header or footer line is divided into three parts: a left part, a middle part, and a right part. Any part, or a whole line, may be left blank. Text for the left part of a header or footer line is set flushleft; text for the middle part is centered; and, text for the right part is set flushright.
Texinfo provides two standard heading formats, one for manuals printed on one side of each sheet of paper, and the other for manuals printed on both sides of the paper.
By default, nothing is specified for the footing of a Texinfo file, so the footing remains blank.
The standard format for single-sided printing consists of a header line in which the left-hand part contains the name of the chapter, the central part is blank, and the right-hand part contains the page number.
A single-sided page looks like this:
_______________________
| |
| chapter page number |
| |
| Start of text ... |
| ... |
| |
The standard format for two-sided printing depends on whether the page number is even or odd. By convention, even-numbered pages are on the left- and odd-numbered pages are on the right. (TeX will adjust the widths of the left- and right-hand margins. Usually, widths are correct, but during double-sided printing, it is wise to check that pages will bind properly--sometimes a printer will produce output in which the even-numbered pages have a larger right-hand margin than the odd-numbered pages.)
In the standard double-sided format, the left part of the left-hand
(even-numbered) page contains the page number, the central part is
blank, and the right part contains the title (specified by the
@settitle command). The left part of the right-hand
(odd-numbered) page contains the name of the chapter, the central part
is blank, and the right part contains the page number.
Two pages, side by side as in an open book, look like this:
_______________________ _______________________
| | | |
| page number title | | chapter page number |
| | | |
| Start of text ... | | More text ... |
| ... | | ... |
| | | |
The chapter name is preceded by the word "Chapter", the chapter number and a colon. This makes it easier to keep track of where you are in the manual.
TeX does not begin to generate page headings for a standard Texinfo
file until it reaches the @end titlepage command. Thus, the
title and copyright pages are not numbered. The @end
titlepage command causes TeX to begin to generate page headings
according to a standard format specified by the
@setchapternewpage command that precedes the
@titlepage section.
There are four possibilities:
@setchapternewpage command
@setchapternewpage on.
@setchapternewpage on
@setchapternewpage off
@headings double command; see
The @headings Command.)
@setchapternewpage odd
Texinfo lacks an @setchapternewpage even command.
You can use the standard headings provided with Texinfo or specify your own. By default, Texinfo has no footers, so if you specify them, the available page size for the main text will be slightly reduced.
Texinfo provides six commands for specifying headings and footings:
@everyheading @everyfooting generate page headers and
footers that are the same for both even- and odd-numbered pages.
@evenheading and @evenfooting command generate headers
and footers for even-numbered (left-hand) pages.
@oddheading and @oddfooting generate headers and footers
for odd-numbered (right-hand) pages.
Write custom heading specifications in the Texinfo file immediately
after the @end titlepage command.
You must cancel the predefined heading commands with the
@headings off command before defining your own
specifications.
Here is how to tell TeX to place the chapter name at the left, the page number in the center, and the date at the right of every header for both even- and odd-numbered pages:
@headings off
@everyheading @thischapter @| @thispage @| @today{}
You need to divide the left part from the central part and the central
part from the right part by inserting @| between parts.
Otherwise, the specification command will not be able to tell where
the text for one part ends and the next part begins.
Each part can contain text or @-commands. The text is printed as if the part were within an ordinary paragraph in the body of the page. The @-commands replace themselves with the page number, date, chapter name, or whatever.
Here are the six heading and footing commands:
@everyheading left @| center @| right@everyfooting left @| center @| right@evenheading left @| center @| right@oddheading left @| center @| right@evenfooting left @| center @| right@oddfooting left @| center @| rightUse the @this... series of @-commands to
provide the names of chapters
and sections and the page number. You can use the
@this... commands in the left, center, or right portions
of headers and footers, or anywhere else in a Texinfo file so long as
they are between @iftex and @end iftex commands.
Here are the @this... commands:
@thispage
@thischaptername
@thischapter
@thistitle
@settitle command.
@thisfile
@include files only: expands to the name of the current
@include file. If the current Texinfo source file is not an
@include file, this command has no effect. This command does
not provide the name of the current Texinfo source file unless
it is an @include file. (See Include Files, for more
information about @include files.)
You can also use the @today{} command, which expands to the
current date, in `1 Jan 1900' format.
Other @-commands and text are printed in a header or footer just as if they were in the body of a page. It is useful to incorporate text, particularly when you are writing drafts:
@headings off
@everyheading @emph{Draft!} @| @thispage @| @thischapter
@everyfooting @| @| Version: 0.27: @today{}
Beware of overlong titles: they may overlap another part of the header or footer and blot it out.
Besides mistakes in the content of your documentation, there are two kinds of mistake you can make with Texinfo: you can make mistakes with @-commands, and you can make mistakes with the structure of the nodes and chapters.
Emacs has two tools for catching the @-command mistakes and two for catching structuring mistakes.
For finding problems with @-commands, you can run TeX or a region formatting command on the region that has a problem; indeed, you can run these commands on each region as you write it.
For finding problems with the structure of nodes and chapters, you can use
C-c C-s (texinfo-show-structure) and the related occur
command and you can use the M-x Info-validate command.
The makeinfo program does an excellent job of catching errors
and reporting them--far better than texinfo-format-region or
texinfo-format-buffer. In addition, the various functions for
automatically creating and updating node pointers and menus remove
many opportunities for human error.
If you can, use the updating commands to create and insert pointers
and menus. These prevent many errors. Then use makeinfo (or
its Texinfo mode manifestations, makeinfo-region and
makeinfo-buffer) to format your file and check for other
errors. This is the best way to work with Texinfo. But if you
cannot use makeinfo, or your problem is very puzzling, then you
may want to use the tools described in this appendix.
After you have written part of a Texinfo file, you can use the
texinfo-format-region or the makeinfo-region command to
see whether the region formats properly.
Most likely, however, you are reading this section because for some
reason you cannot use the makeinfo-region command; therefore, the
rest of this section presumes that you are using
texinfo-format-region.
If you have made a mistake with an @-command,
texinfo-format-region will stop processing at or after the
error and display an error message. To see where in the buffer the
error occurred, switch to the *Info Region* buffer; the cursor
will be in a position that is after the location of the error. Also,
the text will not be formatted after the place where the error
occurred (or more precisely, where it was detected).
For example, if you accidentally end a menu with the command @end
menus with an `s' on the end, instead of with @end menu, you
will see an error message that says:
@end menus is not handled by texinfo
The cursor will stop at the point in the buffer where the error occurs, or not long after it. The buffer will look like this:
---------- Buffer: *Info Region* ----------
* Menu:
* Using texinfo-show-structure:: How to use
`texinfo-show-structure'
to catch mistakes.
* Running Info-Validate:: How to check for
unreferenced nodes.
@end menus
-!-
---------- Buffer: *Info Region* ----------
The texinfo-format-region command sometimes provides slightly
odd error messages. For example, the following cross reference fails to format:
(@xref{Catching Mistakes, for more info.)
In this case, texinfo-format-region detects the missing closing
brace but displays a message that says Unbalanced parentheses
rather than Unbalanced braces. This is because the formatting
command looks for mismatches between braces as if they were
parentheses.
Sometimes texinfo-format-region fails to detect mistakes. For
example, in the following, the closing brace is swapped with the
closing parenthesis:
(@xref{Catching Mistakes), for more info.}
Formatting produces:
(*Note for more info.: Catching Mistakes)
The only way for you to detect this error is to realize that the reference should have looked like this:
(*Note Catching Mistakes::, for more info.)
Incidentally, if you are reading this node in Info and type f
<RET> (Info-follow-reference), you will generate an error
message that says:
No such node: "Catching Mistakes) The only way ...
This is because Info perceives the example of the error as the first
cross reference in this node and if you type a <RET> immediately
after typing the Info f command, Info will attempt to go to the
referenced node. If you type f catch <TAB> <RET>, Info
will complete the node name of the correctly written example and take
you to the `Catching Mistakes' node. (If you try this, you can return
from the `Catching Mistakes' node by typing l
(Info-last).)
You can also catch mistakes when you format a file with TeX.
Usually, you will want to do this after you have run
texinfo-format-buffer (or, better, makeinfo-buffer) on
the same file, because texinfo-format-buffer sometimes displays
error messages that make more sense than TeX. (See Debugging with Info, for more information.)
For example, TeX was run on a Texinfo file, part of which is shown here:
---------- Buffer: texinfo.texi ----------
name of the Texinfo file as an extension. The
@samp{??} are `wildcards' that cause the shell to
substitute all the raw index files. (@xref{sorting
indices, for more information about sorting
indices.)@refill
---------- Buffer: texinfo.texi ----------
(The cross reference lacks a closing brace.) TeX produced the following output, after which it stopped:
---------- Buffer: *tex-shell* ----------
Runaway argument?
{sorting indices, for more information about sorting
indices.) @refill @ETC.
! Paragraph ended before @xref was complete.
<to be read again>
@par
l.27
?
---------- Buffer: *tex-shell* ----------
In this case, TeX produced an accurate and understandable error message:
Paragraph ended before @xref was complete.
@par is an internal TeX command of no relevance to Texinfo.
l.27 means that TeX detected the problem on line 27 of the
Texinfo file. The ? is the prompt TeX uses in this
circumstance.
Unfortunately, TeX is not always so helpful, and sometimes you must truly be a Sherlock Holmes to discover what went wrong.
In any case, if you run into a problem like this, you can do one of three things.
? prompt.
? prompt.
This is often the best thing to do. However, beware: the one error may produce a cascade of additional error messages as its consequences are felt through the rest of the file. To stop TeX when it is producing such an avalanche of error messages, type C-c (or C-c C-c, if you are running a shell inside Emacs).
? prompt.
If you are running TeX inside Emacs, you need to switch to the shell
buffer and line at which TeX offers the ? prompt.
Sometimes TeX will format a file without producing error messages even
though there is a problem. This usually occurs if a command is not ended
but TeX is able to continue processing anyhow. For example, if you fail
to end an itemized list with the @end itemize command, TeX will
write a DVI file that you can print out. The only error message that
TeX will give you is the somewhat mysterious comment that
(@end occurred inside a group at level 1)
However, if you print the DVI file, you will find that the text
of the file that follows the itemized list is entirely indented as if
it were part of the last item in the itemized list. The error message
is the way TeX says that it expected to find an @end
command somewhere in the file; but that it could not determine where
it was needed.
Another source of notoriously hard-to-find errors is a missing
@end group command. If you ever are stumped by
incomprehensible errors, look for a missing @end group command
first.
If the Texinfo file lacks header lines,
TeX may stop in the
beginning of its run and display output that looks like the following.
The * indicates that TeX is waiting for input.
This is TeX, Version 3.14159 (Web2c 7.0)
(test.texinfo [1])
*
In this case, simply type \end <RET> after the asterisk. Then
write the header lines in the Texinfo file and run the TeX command
again. (Note the use of the backslash, \. TeX uses \
instead of @; and in this circumstance, you are working
directly with TeX, not with Texinfo.)
texinfo-show-structureIt is not always easy to keep track of the nodes, chapters, sections, and subsections of a Texinfo file. This is especially true if you are revising or adding to a Texinfo file that someone else has written.
In GNU Emacs, in Texinfo mode, the texinfo-show-structure
command lists all the lines that begin with the @-commands that
specify the structure: @chapter, @section,
@appendix, and so on. With an argument (C-u
as prefix argument, if interactive),
the command also shows the @node lines. The
texinfo-show-structure command is bound to C-c C-s in
Texinfo mode, by default.
The lines are displayed in a buffer called the *Occur* buffer,
indented by hierarchical level. For example, here is a part of what was
produced by running texinfo-show-structure on this manual:
Lines matching "^@\\(chapter \\|sect\\|subs\\|subh\\|
unnum\\|major\\|chapheading \\|heading \\|appendix\\)"
in buffer texinfo.texi.
...
4177:@chapter Nodes
4198: @heading Two Paths
4231: @section Node and Menu Illustration
4337: @section The @code{@@node} Command
4393: @subheading Choosing Node and Pointer Names
4417: @subsection How to Write an @code{@@node} Line
4469: @subsection @code{@@node} Line Tips
...
This says that lines 4337, 4393, and 4417 of texinfo.texi begin
with the @section, @subheading, and @subsection
commands respectively. If you move your cursor into the *Occur*
window, 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. See Using Occur, for more
information about occur-mode-goto-occurrence.
The first line in the *Occur* window describes the regular
expression specified by texinfo-heading-pattern. This regular
expression is the pattern that texinfo-show-structure looks for.
See Using Regular Expressions,
for more information.
When you invoke the texinfo-show-structure command, Emacs will
display the structure of the whole buffer. If you want to see the
structure of just a part of the buffer, of one chapter, for example,
use the C-x n n (narrow-to-region) command to mark the
region. (See Narrowing.) This is
how the example used above was generated. (To see the whole buffer
again, use C-x n w (widen).)
If you call texinfo-show-structure with a prefix argument by
typing C-u C-c C-s, it will list lines beginning with
@node as well as the lines beginning with the @-sign commands
for @chapter, @section, and the like.
You can remind yourself of the structure of a Texinfo file by looking at
the list in the *Occur* window; and if you have mis-named a node
or left out a section, you can correct the mistake.
occurSometimes the texinfo-show-structure command produces too much
information. Perhaps you want to remind yourself of the overall structure
of a Texinfo file, and are overwhelmed by the detailed list produced by
texinfo-show-structure. In this case, you can use the occur
command directly. To do this, type
M-x occur
and then, when prompted, type a regexp, a regular expression for
the pattern you want to match. (See Regular Expressions.) The occur command works from
the current location of the cursor in the buffer to the end of the
buffer. If you want to run occur on the whole buffer, place
the cursor at the beginning of the buffer.
For example, to see all the lines that contain the word
@chapter in them, just type @chapter. This will
produce a list of the chapters. It will also list all the sentences
with @chapter in the middle of the line.
If you want to see only those lines that start with the word
@chapter, type ^@chapter when prompted by
occur. If you want to see all the lines that end with a word
or phrase, end the last word with a $; for example,
catching mistakes$. This can be helpful when you want to see
all the nodes that are part of the same chapter or section and
therefore have the same `Up' pointer.
See Using Occur, for more information.
You can use the Info-validate command to check whether any of
the `Next', `Previous', `Up' or other node pointers fail to point to a
node. This command checks that every node pointer points to an
existing node. The Info-validate command works only on Info
files, not on Texinfo files.
The makeinfo program validates pointers automatically, so you
do not need to use the Info-validate command if you are using
makeinfo. You only may need to use Info-validate if you
are unable to run makeinfo and instead must create an Info file
using texinfo-format-region or texinfo-format-buffer, or
if you write an Info file from scratch.
Info-validate
To use Info-validate, visit the Info file you wish to check and
type:
M-x Info-validate
Note that the Info-validate command requires an upper case
`I'. You may also need to create a tag table before running
Info-validate. See Tagifying.
If your file is valid, you will receive a message that says "File appears
valid". However, if you have a pointer that does not point to a node,
error messages will be displayed in a buffer called *problems in
info file*.
For example, Info-validate was run on a test file that contained
only the first node of this manual. One of the messages said:
In node "Overview", invalid Next: Texinfo Mode
This meant that the node called Overview had a `Next' pointer that
did not point to anything (which was true in this case, since the test file
had only one node in it).
Now suppose we add a node named Texinfo Mode to our test case
but we do not specify a `Previous' for this node. Then we will get
the following error message:
In node "Texinfo Mode", should have Previous: Overview
This is because every `Next' pointer should be matched by a `Previous' (in the node where the `Next' points) which points back.
Info-validate also checks that all menu entries and cross references
point to actual nodes.
Info-validate requires a tag table and does not work with files
that have been split. (The texinfo-format-buffer command
automatically splits large files.) In order to use Info-validate
on a large file, you must run texinfo-format-buffer with an
argument so that it does not split the Info file; and you must create a
tag table for the unsplit file.
You can run Info-validate only on a single Info file that has a
tag table. The command will not work on the indirect subfiles that
are generated when a master file is split. If you have a large file
(longer than 300,000 bytes or so), you need to run the
texinfo-format-buffer or makeinfo-buffer command in such
a way that it does not create indirect subfiles. You will also need
to create a tag table for the Info file. After you have done this,
you can run Info-validate and look for badly referenced
nodes.
The first step is to create an unsplit Info file. To prevent
texinfo-format-buffer from splitting a Texinfo file into
smaller Info files, give a prefix to the M-x
texinfo-format-buffer command:
C-u M-x texinfo-format-buffer
or else
C-u C-c C-e C-b
When you do this, Texinfo will not split the file and will not create a tag table for it.
After creating an unsplit Info file, you must create a tag table for it. Visit the Info file you wish to tagify and type:
M-x Info-tagify
(Note the upper case I in Info-tagify.) This creates an
Info file with a tag table that you can validate.
The third step is to validate the Info file:
M-x Info-validate
(Note the upper case I in Info-validate.)
In brief, the steps are:
C-u M-x texinfo-format-buffer
M-x Info-tagify
M-x Info-validate
After you have validated the node structure, you can rerun
texinfo-format-buffer in the normal way so it will construct a
tag table and split the file automatically, or you can make the tag
table and split the file manually.
You should split a large file or else let the
texinfo-format-buffer or makeinfo-buffer command do it
for you automatically. (Generally you will let one of the formatting
commands do this job for you. See Creating an Info File.)
The split-off files are called the indirect subfiles.
Info files are split to save memory. With smaller files, Emacs does not have make such a large buffer to hold the information.
If an Info file has more than 30 nodes, you should also make a tag
table for it. See Using Info-validate, for information
about creating a tag table. (Again, tag tables are usually created
automatically by the formatting command; you only need to create a tag
table yourself if you are doing the job manually. Most likely, you
will do this for a large, unsplit file on which you have run
Info-validate.)
Visit the Info file you wish to tagify and split and type the two commands:
M-x Info-tagify
M-x Info-split
(Note that the I in Info is upper case.)
When you use the Info-split command, the buffer is modified into a
(small) Info file which lists the indirect subfiles. This file should be
saved in place of the original visited file. The indirect subfiles are
written in the same directory the original file is in, with names generated
by appending - and a number to the original file name.
The primary file still functions as an Info file, but it contains just the tag table and a directory of subfiles.
The @refill command refills and, optionally, indents the first
line of a paragraph.14 The
@refill command is no longer important, but we describe it here
because you once needed it. You will see it in many old Texinfo
files.
Without refilling, paragraphs containing long @-constructs may look
bad after formatting because the formatter removes @-commands and
shortens some lines more than others. In the past, neither the
texinfo-format-region command nor the
texinfo-format-buffer command refilled paragraphs
automatically. The @refill command had to be written at the
end of every paragraph to cause these formatters to fill them. (Both
TeX and makeinfo have always refilled paragraphs
automatically.) Now, all the Info formatters automatically fill and
indent those paragraphs that need to be filled and indented.
The @refill command causes texinfo-format-region and
texinfo-format-buffer to refill a paragraph in the Info file
after all the other processing has been done. For this reason,
you can not use @refill with a paragraph containing either
@* or @w{ ... } since the refilling action will
override those two commands.
The texinfo-format-region and texinfo-format-buffer
commands now automatically append @refill to the end of each
paragraph that should be filled. They do not append @refill to
the ends of paragraphs that contain @* or @w{ ...}
and therefore do not refill or indent them.
The character @ is used to start special Texinfo commands.
(It has the same meaning that \ has in plain TeX.) Texinfo
has four types of @-command:
@., @:, @*, @SPACE@TAB@NL@@, @{, and
@}.
@dots{} => ..., @equiv{}
=> ==, @TeX{} => `TeX',
and @bullet{} => •.
@dfn indicates
the introductory or defining use of a term; it is used as follows: In
Texinfo, @@-commands are @dfn{mark-up} commands.
@center
or @cindex. If no argument is needed, the word is followed by
the end of the line. If there is an argument, it is separated from
the command name by a space. Braces are not used.
Thus, the alphabetic commands fall into classes that have different argument syntaxes. You cannot tell to which class a command belongs by the appearance of its name, but you can tell by the command's meaning: if the command stands for a glyph, it is in class 2 and does not require an argument; if it makes sense to use the command together with other text as part of a paragraph, the command is in class 3 and must be followed by an argument in braces; otherwise, it is in class 4 and uses the rest of the line as its argument.
The purpose of having a different syntax for commands of classes 3 and
4 is to make Texinfo files easier to read, and also to help the GNU
Emacs paragraph and filling commands work properly. There is only one
exception to this rule: the command @refill, which is always
used at the end of a paragraph immediately following the final period
or other punctuation character. @refill takes no argument and
does not require braces. @refill never confuses the
Emacs paragraph commands because it cannot appear at the beginning of
a line.
TeX is freely redistributable. You can obtain TeX for Unix systems via anonymous ftp or on physical media. The core material consists of the Web2c TeX distribution (http://tug.org/web2c).
Instructions for retrieval by anonymous ftp and information on other available distributions:
ftp://tug.org/tex/unixtex.ftp
http://tug.org/unixtex.ftp
The Free Software Foundation provides a core distribution on its Source Code CD-ROM suitable for printing Texinfo manuals. To order it, contact:
Free Software Foundation, Inc.
59 Temple Place Suite 330
Boston, MA 02111-1307
USA
Telephone: +1-617-542-5942
Fax: (including Japan) +1-617-542-2652
Free Dial Fax (in Japan):
0031-13-2473 (KDD)
0066-3382-0158 (IDC)
Electronic mail: gnu@gnu.org
Many other TeX distributions are available; see http://tug.org/.
Copyright © 2000,2001,2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
The purpose of this License is to make a manual, textbook, or other functional and useful document free in the sense of freedom: to assure everyone the effective freedom to copy and redistribute it, with or without modifying it, either commercially or noncommercially. Secondarily, this License preserves for the author and publisher a way to get credit for their work, while not being considered responsible for modifications made by others.
This License is a kind of "copyleft", which means that derivative works of the document must themselves be free in the same sense. It complements the GNU General Public License, which is a copyleft license designed for free software.
We have designed this License in order to use it for manuals for free software, because free software needs free documentation: a free program should come with manuals providing the same freedoms that the software does. But this License is not limited to software manuals; it can be used for any textual work, regardless of subject matter or whether it is published as a printed book. We recommend this License principally for works whose purpose is instruction or reference.
This License applies to any manual or other work, in any medium, that contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it can be distributed under the terms of this License. Such a notice grants a world-wide, royalty-free license, unlimited in duration, to use that work under the conditions stated herein. The "Document", below, refers to any such manual or work. Any member of the public is a licensee, and is addressed as "you". You accept the license if you copy, modify or distribute the work in a way requiring permission under copyright law.
A "Modified Version" of the Document means any work containing the Document or a portion of it, either copied verbatim, or with modifications and/or translated into another language.
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The "Invariant Sections" are certain Secondary Sections whose titles are designated, as being those of Invariant Sections, in the notice that says that the Document is released under this License. If a section does not fit the above definition of Secondary then it is not allowed to be designated as Invariant. The Document may contain zero Invariant Sections. If the Document does not identify any Invariant Sections then there are none.
The "Cover Texts" are certain short passages of text that are listed, as Front-Cover Texts or Back-Cover Texts, in the notice that says that the Document is released under this License. A Front-Cover Text may be at most 5 words, and a Back-Cover Text may be at most 25 words.
A "Transparent" copy of the Document means a machine-readable copy, represented in a format whose specification is available to the general public, that is suitable for revising the document straightforwardly with generic text editors or (for images composed of pixels) generic paint programs or (for drawings) some widely available drawing editor, and that is suitable for input to text formatters or for automatic translation to a variety of formats suitable for input to text formatters. A copy made in an otherwise Transparent file format whose markup, or absence of markup, has been arranged to thwart or discourage subsequent modification by readers is not Transparent. An image format is not Transparent if used for any substantial amount of text. A copy that is not "Transparent" is called "Opaque".
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If your document contains nontrivial examples of program code, we recommend releasing these examples in parallel under your choice of free software license, such as the GNU General Public License, to permit their use in free software.
This is an alphabetical list of all the @-commands, assorted Emacs Lisp
functions, and several variables. To make the list easier to use, the
commands are listed without their preceding @.
! (end of sentence)" (umlaut accent)' (umlaut accent)(newline): Multiple Spaces
(space): Multiple Spaces
(tab): Multiple Spaces
* (force line break), (cedilla accent)- (discretionary hyphen). (end of sentence)/ (allow line break)<colon> (suppress widening)= (macron accent)? (end of sentence)@ (literal @)\ (literal \ in @math)\emergencystretch: Overfull hboxes
\gdef within @tex\input (raw TeX startup)\mag (raw TeX magnification)^ (circumflex accent)` (grave accent)AA: Inserting Accents
aa: Inserting Accents
acronym: acronym
AE: Inserting Accents
ae: Inserting Accents
afourlatex: A4 Paper
afourpaper: A4 Paper
afourwide: A4 Paper
alias: alias
anchor: anchor
appendix: unnumbered & appendix
appendixsec: unnumberedsec appendixsec heading
appendixsection: unnumberedsec appendixsec heading
appendixsubsec: unnumberedsubsec appendixsubsec subheading
appendixsubsubsec: subsubsection
apply: Sample Function Definition
asis: table
author: title subtitle author
b (bold font)buffer-end: Def Cmd Template
bullet: bullet
bye: File End, Ending a File
c (comment)cartouche: cartouche
center: titlefont center sp
centerchap: chapter
chapheading: majorheading & chapheading
chapter: chapter
cindex: Indexing Commands
cite: cite
code: code
columnfractions: Multitable Column Widths
command: command
comment: Comments
contents: Contents
copying: copying
copyright: copyright symbol, copying
cropmarks: Cropmarks and Magnification
defcodeindex: New Indices
defcv: Abstract Objects
deffn: Functions Commands
deffnx: deffnx
defindex: New Indices
definfoenclose: definfoenclose
defivar: Abstract Objects
defmac: Functions Commands
defmethod: Abstract Objects
defop: Abstract Objects
defopt: Variables Commands
defspec: Functions Commands
deftp: Data Types
deftypefn: Typed Functions
deftypefun: Typed Functions
deftypeivar: Abstract Objects
deftypeop: Abstract Objects
deftypevar: Typed Variables
deftypevr: Typed Variables
defun: Functions Commands
defvar: Variables Commands
defvr: Variables Commands
dfn: dfn
dircategory: Installing Dir Entries
direntry: Installing Dir Entries
display: display
dmn: dmn
documentdescription: documentdescription
documentencoding: documentencoding
documentlanguage: documentlanguage
dotaccent: Inserting Accents
dotless: Inserting Accents
dots: dots
email: email
emph: emph & strong
end: Introducing Lists, Quotations and Examples
end titlepage: end titlepage
enddots: dots
enumerate: enumerate
env: env
equiv: Equivalence
error: Error Glyph
evenfooting: Custom Headings
evenheading: Custom Headings
everyfooting: Custom Headings
everyheading: Custom Headings
example: example
exampleindent: exampleindent
exclamdown: Inserting Accents
exdent: exdent
expansion: expansion
file: file
filll TeX dimensionfinalout: Overfull hboxes
findex: Indexing Commands
firstparagraphindent: firstparagraphindent
flushleft: flushleft & flushright
flushright: flushleft & flushright
foobar: Optional Arguments
footnote: Footnotes
footnotestyle: Footnote Styles
format: format
forward-word: Def Cmd Template
ftable: ftable vtable
group: group
H (Hungarian umlaut accent)hbox: Overfull hboxes
heading: unnumberedsec appendixsec heading
headings: headings on off
headword: definfoenclose
html: Raw Formatter Commands
hyphenation: - and hyphenation
i (italic font)ifclear: ifset ifclear
ifhtml: Raw Formatter Commands, Conditional Commands
ifinfo: Conditional Commands
ifnothtml: Conditional Not Commands
ifnotinfo: Conditional Not Commands
ifnotplaintext: Conditional Not Commands
ifnottex: Conditional Not Commands
ifnotxml: Conditional Not Commands
ifplaintext: Conditional Commands
ifset: ifset ifclear
iftex: Conditional Commands
ifxml: Raw Formatter Commands, Conditional Commands
ignore: Comments
image: Images
include: Using Include Files
indent: indent
Info-validate: Running Info-Validate
inforef: inforef
insertcopying: insertcopying
isearch-backward: deffnx
isearch-forward: deffnx
item: Multitable Rows, table, itemize
itemize: itemize
itemx: itemx
kbd: kbd
kbdinputstyle: kbd
key: key
kindex: Indexing Commands
L: Inserting Accents
l: Inserting Accents
lisp: lisp
lowersections: Raise/lower sections
macro: Defining Macros
majorheading: majorheading & chapheading
makeinfo-buffer: makeinfo in Emacs
makeinfo-kill-job: makeinfo in Emacs
makeinfo-recenter-output-buffer: makeinfo in Emacs
makeinfo-region: makeinfo in Emacs
math: math
menu: Menus
minus: minus
multitable: Multi-column Tables
need: need
next-error: makeinfo in Emacs
node: node
noindent: noindent
novalidate: Format with tex/texindex
O: Inserting Accents
o: Inserting Accents
occur: Using occur
occur-mode-goto-occurrence: Showing the Structure
oddfooting: Custom Headings
oddheading: Custom Headings
OE: Inserting Accents
oe: Inserting Accents
option: option
page: page
page, within @titlepagepagesizes: pagesizes
paragraphindent: paragraphindent
phoo: definfoenclose
pindex: Indexing Commands
point: Point Glyph
pounds: pounds
print: Print Glyph
printindex: Printing Indices & Menus
pxref: pxref
questiondown: Inserting Accents
quotation: quotation
r (Roman font)raisesections: Raise/lower sections
ref: ref
refill: Refilling Paragraphs
result: result
ringaccent: Inserting Accents
rmacro: Defining Macros
samp: samp
sc (small caps font)section: section
setchapternewpage: setchapternewpage
setcontentsaftertitlepage: Contents
setfilename: setfilename
setshortcontentsaftertitlepage: Contents
settitle: settitle
shortcontents: Contents
shorttitlepage: titlepage
smallbook: smallbook
smalldisplay: display, small
smallexample: small
smallformat: format, small
smalllisp: small
sp (line spacing)sp (titlepage line spacing)ss: Inserting Accents
strong: emph & strong
subheading: unnumberedsubsec appendixsubsec subheading
subsection: subsection
subsubheading: subsubsection
subsubsection: subsubsection
subtitle: title subtitle author
summarycontents: Contents
syncodeindex: syncodeindex
synindex: synindex
t (typewriter font)tab: Multitable Rows
table: Two-column Tables
tex: Raw Formatter Commands
tex (command): tex
texinfo-all-menus-update: Updating Commands
texinfo-every-node-update: Updating Commands
texinfo-format-buffer: texinfo-format commands, Info Formatting
texinfo-format-region: texinfo-format commands, Info Formatting
texinfo-indent-menu-description: Other Updating Commands
texinfo-insert-@code: Inserting
texinfo-insert-@dfn: Inserting
texinfo-insert-@end: Inserting
texinfo-insert-@example: Inserting
texinfo-insert-@item: Inserting
texinfo-insert-@kbd: Inserting
texinfo-insert-@node: Inserting
texinfo-insert-@noindent: Inserting
texinfo-insert-@samp: Inserting
texinfo-insert-@table: Inserting
texinfo-insert-@var: Inserting
texinfo-insert-braces: Inserting
texinfo-insert-node-lines: Other Updating Commands
texinfo-make-menu: Updating Commands
texinfo-master-menu: Updating Commands
texinfo-multiple-files-update: texinfo-multiple-files-update
texinfo-multiple-files-update (in brief)texinfo-sequential-node-update: Other Updating Commands
texinfo-show-structure: Using texinfo-show-structure, Showing the Structure
texinfo-start-menu-description: Inserting
texinfo-tex-buffer: Printing
texinfo-tex-print: Printing
texinfo-tex-region: Printing
texinfo-update-node: Updating Commands
thischapter: Custom Headings
thischaptername: Custom Headings
thisfile: Custom Headings
thispage: Custom Headings
thistitle: Custom Headings
tie (unbreakable interword space)tieaccent: Inserting Accents
tindex: Indexing Commands
title: title subtitle author
titlefont: titlefont center sp
titlepage: titlepage
today: Custom Headings
top: The Top Node
top (@-command)u (breve accent)ubaraccent: Inserting Accents
udotaccent: Inserting Accents
unmacro: Defining Macros
unnumbered: unnumbered & appendix
unnumberedsec: unnumberedsec appendixsec heading
unnumberedsubsec: unnumberedsubsec appendixsubsec subheading
unnumberedsubsubsec: subsubsection
up-list: Inserting
uref: uref
url: url
v (check accent)value: set value
var: var
verb: verb
verbatim: verbatim
verbatiminclude: verbatiminclude
vindex: Indexing Commands
vskip TeX vertical skipvtable: ftable vtable
w (prevent line break)xml: Raw Formatter Commands
xref: xref
{ (literal {)} (literal })~ (tilde accent)--commands-in-node-names: makeinfo options
--css-include: makeinfo options
--delete: Invoking install-info
--dir-file=name--docbook: makeinfo options
--enable-encoding: makeinfo options, documentencoding
--entry=text--error-limit=limit--fill-column=width--footnote-style, ignored in HTML output--footnote-style=style--force: makeinfo options
--help: Invoking install-info, makeinfo options
--html: makeinfo options
--ifhtml: makeinfo options
--ifinfo: makeinfo options
--ifplaintext: makeinfo options
--iftex: makeinfo options
--ifxml: makeinfo options
--info-dir=dir--info-file=file--item=text--macro-expand=file--no-headers: makeinfo options
--no-ifhtml: makeinfo options
--no-ifinfo: makeinfo options
--no-ifplaintext: makeinfo options
--no-iftex: makeinfo options
--no-ifxml: makeinfo options
--no-number-footnotes: makeinfo options
--no-pointer-validate: makeinfo options
--no-split: makeinfo options
--no-validate: makeinfo options
--no-warn: makeinfo options
--number-sections: makeinfo options
--output=file--paragraph-indent=indent--quiet: Invoking install-info
--reference-limit=limit--remove: Invoking install-info
--section=sec--split-size=num--verbose: makeinfo options
--version: Invoking install-info, makeinfo options
--xml: makeinfo options
-D dir-d name-D var-E file-e limit-e text-F: makeinfo options
-f width-h: Invoking install-info, makeinfo options
-I dir-i file-o file-P dir-p indent-r: Invoking install-info
-r limit-s sec-s style-V: Invoking install-info, makeinfo options
@include file sample: Sample Include File
@menu parts: Menu Parts
@node line writing: Writing a Node
@w, for blank items: itemize
\input source line ignored: setfilename
autoexec.bat: Other Info Directories
automake, and version infomakeinfo: makeinfo Pointer Creation
@code: code
code, arg to @kbdinputstyleINFOPATH: Other Info Directories
makeinfo: makeinfo Pointer Creation
@inforef: inforef
@pxref: pxref
@ref: ref
@xref: xref
dir directory for Info installation: Installing an Info File
dir file listing: New Info File
dir file, creating your own: Other Info Directories
dir files and Info directories: Other Info Directories
dir, created by install-info: Invoking install-info
distinct, arg to @kbdinputstyleDvips: Output Formats
epsf.tex: Image Scaling
epsf.tex, installingexample, arg to @kbdinputstyletex and texindex: Format with tex/texindex
hboxes, overfull: Overfull hboxes
help2man: Output Formats
href, producing HTML: uref
@setfilename: setfilename
Info-directory-list: Other Info Directories
INFOPATH: Other Info Directories
INSTALL file, generating: makeinfo options
install-info: Invoking install-info
texi2dvi: Format with texi2dvi
lpr (DVI print command)lpr-d, replacements on MS-DOS/MS-Windowsmakeinfo: Using Texinfo
makeinfo inside Emacs: makeinfo in Emacs
makeinfo options: makeinfo options
dir file: New Info File
@occur: Using occur
makeinfo: makeinfo options
hboxes: Overfull hboxes
page-delimiter: Showing the Structure
pdfcolor.tex, installingpdftex: PDF Output, Output Formats
pdftex, and imagesmakeinfo: makeinfo Pointer Creation
makeinfo: Pointer Validation
@inforef: inforef
@pxref: pxref
@ref: ref
@xref: xref
ridt.eps: Image Scaling
Info-validate: Using Info-validate
makeinfo in Emacs: makeinfo in Emacs
@include file: Sample Include File
tex and texindex: Format with tex/texindex
makeinfo in: makeinfo in Emacs
@kbd: kbd
texi2dvi: Format with tex/texindex
texi2dvi (shell script)texindex: Format with tex/texindex, Hardcopy
@setfilename: setfilename
texinfo.cnf: setfilename
texinfo.cnf installationtexinfo.tex, installingTEXINPUTS: Preparing for TeX
TEXINPUTS environment variable: Preparing for TeX
time-stamp.el: GNU Sample Texts
@deffn: deffnx
@table: itemx
txi-cc.tex: documentlanguage
UPDATED Automake variableVERSION Automake variable@node line: Writing a Node
Xdvi: Output Formats
XPM image format: Image Syntax
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 lower case.
In some documents, the first child has no `Previous' pointer. Occasionally, the last child has the node name of the next following higher level node as its `Next' pointer.
You can also use the
texi2roff program if you
do not have TeX; since Texinfo is designed for use with TeX,
texi2roff is not described here. texi2roff is not part of
the standard GNU distribution and is not maintained or up-to-date with
all the Texinfo features described in this manual.
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.
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.
Menus can carry you to any node, regardless of the hierarchical structure; even to nodes in a different Info file. However, the GNU Emacs Texinfo mode updating commands work only to create menus of subordinate nodes. Conventionally, cross references are used to refer to other nodes.
It would be straightforward to extend Texinfo to work in a similar fashion for C, Fortran, or other languages.
A footnote should complement or expand upon the primary text, but a reader should not need to read a footnote to understand the primary text. For a thorough discussion of footnotes, see The Chicago Manual of Style, which is published by the University of Chicago Press.
Here is the sample footnote.
Note the use
of the ; character, instead of :, as directory separator
on these systems.
On MS-DOS/MS-Windows systems, Info will
try the .inf extension as well.
Note the
use of ; as the directory separator, and a different syntax for
using values of other environment variables.
On MS-DOS/MS-Windows systems, use semi-colon instead.
Perhaps the command should have been
called the @refillandindent command, but @refill is
shorter and the name was chosen before indenting was possible.