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Creating Pointers with makeinfo

The makeinfo program has a feature for automatically defining node pointers for a hierarchically organized file.

When you take advantage of this feature, you do not need to write the `Next', `Previous', and `Up' pointers after the name of a node. However, you must write a sectioning command, such as @chapter or @section, on the line immediately following each truncated @node line (except that comment lines may intervene).

In addition, you must follow the `Top' @node line with a line beginning with @top to mark the `Top' node in the file. See @top.

Finally, you must write the name of each node (except for the `Top' node) in a menu that is one or more hierarchical levels above the node's hierarchical level.

This node pointer insertion feature in makeinfo relieves you from the need to update menus and pointers manually or with Texinfo mode commands. (See Updating Nodes and Menus.)

In most cases, you will want to take advantage of this feature and not redundantly specify node pointers. However, Texinfo documents are not required to be organized hierarchically or in fact contain sectioning commands at all. For example, if you never intend the document to be printed. In those cases, you will need to explicitly specify the pointers.