5.11 @part: Groups of Chapters

The final sectioning command is @part, to mark a part of a manual, that is, a group of chapters or (rarely) appendices. This behaves quite differently from the other sectioning commands, to fit with the way such “parts” are conventionally used in books.

No @node command is associated with @part. Just write the command on a line by itself, including the part title, at the place in the document you want to mark off as starting that part. For example:

@part Part I:@* The beginning

As can be inferred from this example, no automatic numbering or labeling of the @part text is done. The text is taken as-is.

Because parts are not associated with nodes, no general text can follow the @part line. To produce the intended output, it must be followed by a chapter-level command (including its node). Thus, to continue the example:

@part Part I:@* The beginning

@node Introduction
@chapter Introduction
...

In the TeX output, the @part text is included in both the normal and short tables of contents (see section Generating a Table of Contents), without a page number (since that is the normal convention). In addition, a “part page” is output in the body of the document, with just the @part text. In the example above, the @* causes a line break on the part page (but is replaced with a space in the tables of contents). This part page is always forced to be on an odd (right-hand) page, regardless of the chapter pagination (see section @setchapternewpage: Blank Pages Before Chapters).

In the HTML output, the @part text is similarly included in the tables of contents, and a heading is included in the main document text, as part of the following chapter or appendix node.

In the XML and Docbook output, the <part> element includes all the following chapters, up to the next <part>. A <part> containing chapters is also closed at an appendix.

In the Info and plain text output, @part has no effect.

@part is ignored when raising or lowering sections (see next section). That is, it is never lowered and nothing can be raised to it.

This document was generated on October 2, 2013 using texi2html 5.0.