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.

@@ stands for a single `@' in either printed or Info output.

Do not put braces after an @@ command.

@{ 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.

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 ...

@: has no effect on the Info output. Do not put braces after @:.

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.

The meanings of @: and @. in Texinfo are designed to work well with the Emacs sentence motion commands (See emacs:Sentences). This made it necessary for them to be incompatible with some other formatting systems that use @-commands.

Do not put braces after any of these commands.

Ordinarily, T_EX 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.

Spacey    example.

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, T_EX 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.

A4 paper is 8.27in wide.

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.

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) ....

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: o

Use the @TeX{} command to generate `T<sub>E</sub>X'. 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.

Use the @copyright{} command to generate `©'. In a printed manual, this is a `c' inside a circle, and in Info, this is `(C)'.

Use 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.

Use 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 sign¾a 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.

You should not use @minus{} inside @code or @example because the width distinction is not made in the fixed-width font they use.

You 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

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.

®

@result{} points to the result of an expression.

̃

@expansion{} shows the results of a macro expansion.

-|

@print{} indicates printed output.

error̃

@error{} indicates that the following text is an error message.

º

@equiv{} indicates the exact equivalence of two forms.

·

@point{} shows the location of point.

Use the @result{} command to indicate the result of evaluating an expression.

The @result{} command is displayed as `®' in Info and as a double stemmed arrow in the printed output.

Thus, the following,

(cdr '(1 2 3))
     ® (2 3)

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.

The @expansion{} command is displayed as `̃' in Info and as a long arrow with a flat base in the printed output.

For example, the following

@lisp
(third '(a b c))
     @expansion{} (car (cdr (cdr '(a b c))))
     @result{} c
@end lisp

(third '(a b c))
     ̃ (car (cdr (cdr '(a b c))))
     ® c

(third '(a b c)) expands to (car (cdr (cdr '(a b c)))); the result of evaluating the expression is c.

Sometimes an expression will print output during its execution. You can indicate the printed output with the @print{} command.

The @print{} command is displayed as `-|' in Info and similarly, as a horizontal dash butting against a vertical bar, in the printed output.

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

@lisp
(progn (print 'foo) (print 'bar))
     @print{} foo
     @print{} bar
     @result{} bar
@end lisp

A piece of code may cause an error when you evaluate it. You can designate the error message with the @error{} command.

The @error{} command is displayed as `error̃' in Info and as the word `error' in a box in the printed output.

Thus,

@lisp
(+ 23 'x)
@error{} Wrong type argument: integer-or-marker-p, x
@end lisp

(+ 23 'x)
error̃ Wrong type argument: integer-or-marker-p, x

Wrong type argument: integer-or-marker-p, x

Sometimes two expressions produce identical results. You can indicate the exact equivalence of two forms with the @equiv{} command.

The @equiv{} command is displayed as `º' in Info and as a three parallel horizontal lines in the printed output.

Thus,

@lisp
(make-sparse-keymap) @equiv{} (list 'keymap)
@end lisp

(make-sparse-keymap) º (list 'keymap)

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 @point{} command is displayed as `·' in Info and as a small five pointed star in the printed output.

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 ----------

@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

You can insert an image in an external file with the @image command:

@image{filename, [width], [height]}

@image{ridt,,1in}