DOC HOME SITE MAP MAN PAGES GNU INFO SEARCH PRINT BOOK
 

(texinfo) Contents

Info Catalog (texinfo) Printing Indices & Menus (texinfo) Ending a File (texinfo) File End
 
 Generating a Table of Contents
 ==============================
 
   The `@chapter', `@section', and other structuring commands 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'
      Generate a table of contents in a printed manual, including all
      chapters, sections, subsections, etc., as well as appendices and
      unnumbered chapters.  (Headings generated by the `@heading' series
      of commands do not appear in the table of contents.)
 
 `@shortcontents'
 `@summarycontents'
      (`@summarycontents' is a synonym for `@shortcontents'; the two
      commands are exactly the same.)
 
      Generate a short or summary table of contents that lists only the
      chapters (and appendices and unnumbered chapters).  Omit sections,
      subsections and subsubsections.  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.
 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').
 
   The contents commands can be placed either at the very end of the
 file, after any indices (see the previous section) and just before the
 `@bye' (see the next section), or near the beginning of the file, after
 the `@end titlepage' ( titlepage).  The advantage to the former
 is that then the contents output is always up to date, because it
 reflects the processing just done.  The advantage to the latter is that
 the contents are printed in the proper place, thus you do not need to
 rearrange the DVI file with `dviselect' or shuffle paper.  However,
 contents commands at the beginning of the document are ignored when
 outputting to standard output.
 
   As an author, you can put the contents commands wherever you prefer.
 But if you are a user simply printing a manual, you may wish to print
 the contents after the title page even if the author put the contents
 commands at the end of the document (as is the case in most existing
 Texinfo documents).  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
 no `@end titlepage' is ever encountered).
 
   You need to include the `@set...contentsaftertitlepage' commands
 early in the document (just after `@setfilename', for example).  Or, if
 you're using `texi2dvi' ( Format with texi2dvi), you can use its
 `--texinfo' option to specify this without altering the source file at
 all.  For example:
      texi2dvi --texinfo=@setshortcontentsaftertitlepage foo.texi
 
Info Catalog (texinfo) Printing Indices & Menus (texinfo) Ending a File (texinfo) File End
automatically generated byinfo2html