20.1.2 Running makeinfo Within Emacs

You can run makeinfo in GNU Emacs Texinfo mode by using either the makeinfo-region or the makeinfo-buffer commands. In Texinfo mode, the commands are bound to C-c C-m C-r and C-c C-m C-b by default.

C-c C-m C-r

M-x makeinfo-region

Format the current region for Info.

C-c C-m C-b

M-x makeinfo-buffer

Format the current buffer for Info.

When you invoke makeinfo-region the output goes to a temporary buffer. When you invoke makeinfo-buffer output goes to the file set with @setfilename (see @setfilename: Set the Output File Name).

The Emacs makeinfo-region and makeinfo-buffer commands run the makeinfo program in a temporary shell buffer. If makeinfo finds any errors, Emacs displays the error messages in the temporary buffer.

You can parse the error messages by typing C-x ` (next-error). This causes Emacs to go to and position the cursor on the line in the Texinfo source that makeinfo thinks caused the error. See Running make or Compilers Generally in The GNU Emacs Manual, for more information about using the next-error command.

In addition, you can kill the shell in which the makeinfo command is running or make the shell buffer display its most recent output.

C-c C-m C-k ¶

M-x makeinfo-kill-job

Kill the current running makeinfo job (from makeinfo-region or makeinfo-buffer).

C-c C-m C-l ¶

M-x makeinfo-recenter-output-buffer

Redisplay the makeinfo shell buffer to display its most recent output.

(Note that the parallel commands for killing and recentering a TeX job are C-c C-t C-k and C-c C-t C-l. See Formatting and Printing in Texinfo Mode.)

You can specify options for makeinfo by setting the makeinfo-options variable with either the M-x customize or the M-x set-variable command, or by setting the variable in your .emacs initialization file.

For example, you could write the following in your .emacs file:

(setq makeinfo-options
     "--paragraph-indent=0 --no-split
      --fill-column=70 --verbose")

For more information, see
Easy Customization Interface in The GNU Emacs Manual,
Examining and Setting Variables in The GNU Emacs Manual,
Init File in The GNU Emacs Manual, and
makeinfo Options.