5.4.3 @xref with Three Arguments

A third argument replaces the node name in the TeX output. The third argument should be the name of the section in the printed output, or else state the topic discussed by that section.

The template is like this:

@xref{node-name, online-label, printed-label}.

For example,

@xref{Electrical Effects, Lightning, Thunder and Lightning},
for details.

produces

*Note Lightning: Electrical Effects, for details.

in Info and

See Section 5.2 [Thunder and Lightning], page 57, for details.

in a printed manual.

If a third argument is given and the second one is empty, then the third argument serves for both. (Note how two commas, side by side, mark the empty second argument.)

@xref{Electrical Effects, , Thunder and Lightning},
for details.

produces

*Note Thunder and Lightning: Electrical Effects, for details.

in Info and

See Section 5.2 [Thunder and Lightning], page 57, for details.

in a printed manual.

The third argument to cross-references must observe some of the restrictions for node names (see @node Line Requirements). The most common issue is that colons cannot be used, since that interferes with the parsing of the Info file.

As a practical matter, it is often best to write cross-references with just the first argument if the node name and the section title are the same (or nearly so), and with the first and third arguments only if the node name and title are different.

Texinfo offers a setting to use the section title instead of node names by default in cross-references (an explicitly specified third argument still takes precedence):

@xrefautomaticsectiontitle on

Typically this line would be given near the beginning of the document and used for the whole manual. But you can turn it off if you want (@xrefautomaticsectiontitle off), for example, if you’re including some other sub-document that doesn’t have suitable section names. This setting also applies to node headers in HTML, if @xrefautomaticsectiontitle is on, the sections names are used in node headers instead of the node names when possible.