3.4 Title and Copyright Pages

In hard copy output, the manual's name and author are usually printed on a title page. Copyright information is usually printed on the back of the title page.

The title and copyright pages appear in 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.

3.4.1 @titlepage

Start the material for the title page and following copyright page with @titlepage on a line by itself and end it with @end titlepage on a line by itself.

The @end titlepage command starts a new page and turns on page numbering. (See section 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 section Generating a Table of Contents).

By using the @page command you can force a page break within the region delineated by the @titlepage and @end titlepage commands and thereby create more than one unnumbered page. This is how the copyright page is produced. (The @titlepage command might perhaps have been better named the @titleandadditionalpages command, but that would have been rather long!)

When you write a manual about a computer program, you should write the version of the program to which the manual applies on the title page. If the manual changes more frequently than the program or is independent of it, you should also include an edition number(5) 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 and Master Menu.)

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 documents, and for the bastard title page in traditional book frontmatter, Texinfo also provides a command @shorttitlepage which takes the rest of the line as the title. The argument is typeset on a page by itself and followed by a blank page.

3.4.2 @titlefont, @center, and @sp

You can use the @titlefont, @sp, and @center commands to create a title page for a printed document. (This is the first of the two methods for creating a title page in Texinfo.)

Use the @titlefont command to select a large font suitable for the title itself. You can use @titlefont more than once if you have an especially long title.

For HTML output, each @titlefont command produces an <h1> heading, but the HTML document <title> is not affected. For that, you must put an @settitle command before the @titlefont command (see section @settitle: Set the document 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 section @sp, for more information about the @sp command.)

A template for this method looks like this:

@titlepage
@sp 10
@center @titlefont{name-of-manual-when-printed}
@sp 2
@center subtitle-if-any
@sp 2
@center author
…
@end titlepage

The spacing of the example fits an 8.5 by 11 inch manual.

You can in fact use these commands anywhere, not just on a title page, but since they are not logical markup commands, we don't recommend them.

3.4.3 @title, @subtitle, and @author

You can use the @title, @subtitle, and @author commands to create a title page in which the vertical and horizontal spacing is done for you automatically. This contrasts with the method described in the previous section, in which the @sp command is needed to adjust vertical spacing.

Write the @title, @subtitle, or @author commands at the beginning of a line followed by the title, subtitle, or author. These commands are only effective in TeX output; it's an error to use them anywhere except within @titlepage.

The @title command produces a line in which the title is set flush to the left-hand side of the page in a larger than normal font. The title is underlined with a black rule. 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.

3.4.4 Copyright Page

By international treaty, the copyright notice for a book must be either on the title page or on the back of the title page. When the copyright notice is on the back of the title page, that page is customarily not numbered. Therefore, in Texinfo, the information on the copyright page should be within @titlepage and @end titlepage commands.

Use the @page command to cause a page break. To push the copyright notice and the other text on the copyright page towards the bottom of the page, use the following 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 `l's in the word `filll'; this is correct.

To insert the copyright text itself, write @insertcopying next (see section 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

3.4.5 Heading Generation

Like all @end commands (see section Quotations and Examples), the @end titlepage command must be written at the beginning of a line by itself, with only one space between the @end and the titlepage. It not only marks the end of the title and copyright pages, but also causes TeX to start generating page headings and page numbers.

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:

• The conventional way is to write an @setchapternewpage command before the title page commands, and then have the @end titlepage command start generating page headings in the manner desired. (See section @setchapternewpage:.)
• Alternatively, you can use the @headings command to prevent page headings from being generated or to start them for either single or double-sided printing. (Write an @headings command immediately after the @end titlepage command. See section The @headings Command, for more information.)
• Or, you may specify your own page heading and footing format. See section Page Headings, for detailed information about page headings and footings.

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.

3.4.6 The @headings Command

The @headings command is rarely used. It specifies what kind of page headings and footings to print on each page. Usually, this is controlled by the @setchapternewpage command. You need the @headings command only if the @setchapternewpage command does not do what you want, or if you want to turn off 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

Turn off printing of page headings.

@headings single

Turn on page headings appropriate for single-sided printing.

@headings double

@headings on

Turn on page headings appropriate for double-sided printing. The two commands, @headings on and @headings double, are synonymous.

@headings singleafter

@headings doubleafter

Turn on single or double headings, respectively, after the current page is output.

@headings on

Turn on page headings: single if `@setchapternewpage on', double otherwise.

For example, suppose you write @setchapternewpage off before the @titlepage command to tell TeX to start a new chapter on the same page as the end of the last chapter. This command also causes TeX to typeset page headers for single-sided printing. To cause TeX to typeset for double sided printing, write @headings double after the @end titlepage command.

You can stop TeX from generating any page headings at all by writing @headings off on a line of its own immediately after the line containing the @end titlepage command, like this:

@end titlepage
@headings off

The @headings off command overrides the @end titlepage command, which would otherwise cause TeX to print page headings.

You can also specify your own style of page heading and footing. See section Page Headings, for more information.

This document was generated by Michael Plugge on December, 6 2005 using texi2html 1.76.