5.4.4 @xref with Four and Five Arguments

In a cross-reference, a fourth argument specifies the name of another Info file, different from the file in which the reference appears, and a fifth argument specifies its title as a printed manual.

The full template is:

@xref{node-name, online-label, printed-label,
info-file-name, printed-manual-title}.

For example,

@xref{Electrical Effects, Lightning, Thunder and Lightning,
weather, An Introduction to Meteorology}.

produces this output in Info:

*Note Lightning: (weather)Electrical Effects.

As you can see, the name of the Info file is enclosed in parentheses and precedes the name of the node.

In a printed manual, the reference looks like this:

See section “Thunder and Lightning” in An Introduction to Meteorology.

The title of the printed manual is typeset like @cite; and the reference lacks a page number since TeX cannot know to which page a reference refers when that reference is to another manual.

Next case: often, you will leave out the second argument when you use the long version of @xref. In this case, the third argument, the topic description, will be used as the cross-reference name in Info. For example,

@xref{Electrical Effects, , Thunder and Lightning,
weather, An Introduction to Meteorology}.

produces

*Note Thunder and Lightning: (weather)Electrical Effects.

in Info and

See section “Thunder and Lightning” in An Introduction to Meteorology.

in a printed manual.

Next case: If the node name and the section title are the same in the other manual, you may also leave out the section title. In this case, the node name is used in both instances. For example,

@xref{Electrical Effects,,,
weather, An Introduction to Meteorology}.

produces

*Note (weather)Electrical Effects::.

in Info and

See section “Electrical Effects” in An Introduction to Meteorology.

in a printed manual.

A very unusual case: you may want to refer to another manual file that is within a single printed manual—when multiple Texinfo files are incorporated into the same TeX run but can create separate Info or HTML output files. In this case, you need to specify only the fourth argument, and not the fifth.

Finally, it’s also allowed to leave out all the arguments except the fourth and fifth, to refer to another manual as a whole. See the next section.