Next: , Previous: setfilename, Up: Texinfo File Header

3.2.4 @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. The best place for it is right after the @setfilename command (see the previous section).

In the HTML file produced by makeinfo, title serves as the document `<title>'. It also becomes the default document description in the `<head>' part (see documentdescription).

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.