The @chapter, @section, and other structuring commands
(see Chapter Structuring) supply the information to make up a
table of contents, but they do not cause an actual table to appear in
the manual. To do this, you must use the @contents and/or
@summarycontents command(s).
@contentsGenerates a table of contents in a printed manual, including all
chapters, sections, subsections, etc., as well as appendices and
unnumbered chapters. Headings generated by @majorheading,
@chapheading, and the other @…heading commands
do not appear in the table of contents (see Structuring Command Types).
@shortcontents@summarycontents(@summarycontents is a synonym for @shortcontents.)
Generates a short or summary table of contents that lists only the chapters, appendices, and unnumbered chapters. Sections, subsections and subsubsections are omitted. Only a long manual needs a short table of contents in addition to the full table of contents.
Both contents commands should be written on a line by themselves, and
placed near the beginning of the file, after the @end
titlepage (see @titlepage), before any sectioning
command. The contents commands automatically generate a chapter-like
heading at the top of the first table of contents page, so don’t
include any sectioning command such as @unnumbered before
them.
Since an Info file uses menus instead of tables of contents, the Info formatting commands ignore the contents commands. But the contents are included in plain text output and in other output formats, such as HTML.
In HTML output, the links in the short table of contents point to corresponding entries in the full table of contents rather than the text of the document. The links in the full table of contents point to the main text of the document.
@shortcontents is not implemented for LaTeX output.