E.6 @smallbook: Printing “Small” Books

By default, TeX typesets pages for printing in an 8.5 by 11 inch format, which is the “letter” size commonly used in the United States. However, you can direct TeX or LaTeX to typeset a document in a 7 by 9.25 inch format that is suitable for bound books by inserting the following command on a line by itself at the beginning of the Texinfo file, before the title page:

@smallbook

(Since many books are about 7 by 9.25 inches, this command might better have been called the @regularbooksize command, but it came to be called the @smallbook command by comparison to the 8.5 by 11 inch format.)

See Format with texi2dvi or texi2pdf, and Preparing for TeX, for other ways to format with @smallbook with TeX that do not require changing the source file.