D.5.3 Other Updating Commands

In addition to the five major updating commands, Texinfo mode possesses several less frequently used updating commands:

M-x texinfo-insert-node-lines

Insert @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 command texinfo-insert-node-lines 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.

M-x texinfo-multiple-files-update

Update nodes and menus in a document built from several separate files. With C-u as a prefix argument, create and insert a master menu in the outer file. With a numeric prefix argument, such as C-u 2, first update all the menus and all the ‘Next’, ‘Previous’, and ‘Up’ pointers of all the included files before creating and inserting a master menu in the outer file. The texinfo-multiple-files-update command is described in the appendix on @include files. See texinfo-multiple-files-update.

M-x texinfo-indent-menu-description

Indent every description in the menu following point to the specified column. You can use this command to give yourself more space for descriptions. With an argument (C-u as prefix argument, if interactive), the 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.

M-x texinfo-sequential-node-update

Insert the names of the nodes immediately following and preceding the current node as the ‘Next’ or ‘Previous’ pointers regardless of those nodes’ hierarchical level. This means that the ‘Next’ node of a subsection may well be the next chapter. Sequentially ordered nodes are useful for novels and other documents that you read through sequentially. (However, in Info, the g * command lets you look through the file sequentially, so sequentially ordered nodes are not strictly necessary.) With an argument (prefix argument, if interactive), the texinfo-sequential-node-update command sequentially updates all the nodes in the region.