| DocBook: The Definitive Guide Version 2.0.7 (Alpha)

# title

$Revision: 1.3 $

$Date: 2002/06/12 11:18:40 $

title — The text of the title of a section of a document or of a formal block-level element

## Synopsis

### Mixed Content Model

    title ::=
    (#PCDATA|footnoteref|xref|abbrev|acronym|citation|citerefentry|
     citetitle|emphasis|firstterm|foreignphrase|glossterm|footnote|
     phrase|quote|trademark|wordasword|personname|link|olink|ulink|
     action|application|classname|methodname|interfacename|
     exceptionname|ooclass|oointerface|ooexception|command|
     computeroutput|database|email|envar|errorcode|errorname|
     errortype|errortext|filename|function|guibutton|guiicon|guilabel|
     guimenu|guimenuitem|guisubmenu|hardware|interface|keycap|keycode|
     keycombo|keysym|literal|constant|markup|medialabel|menuchoice|
     mousebutton|option|optional|parameter|prompt|property|
     replaceable|returnvalue|sgmltag|structfield|structname|symbol|
     systemitem|token|type|userinput|varname|nonterminal|anchor|
     author|authorinitials|corpauthor|modespec|othercredit|
     productname|productnumber|revhistory|remark|subscript|
     superscript|inlinegraphic|inlinemediaobject|inlineequation|
     indexterm)*

### Attributes

Common attributes

Name | Type | Default
pagenum | CDATA | None

## Description

`Title` is widely used in DocBook. It identifies the titles of documents and parts of documents, and is the required caption on formal objects. It is also allowed as an optional title or caption on many additional block elements.

### Processing expectations

Formatted as a displayed block. Titles are often repeated in several locations, for example, at the location where the object occurs, in the table of contents, and in running headers and footers.

DocBook does not offer any mechanism for indicating where a line break should occur in long titles. Titles are often repeated and no single line break is likely to be correct in all of the places where a title is used. Instead, you will have to rely on your processing system to provide a mechanism, such as a processing instruction, for identifing the location of forced line breaks.

There are some contexts in which a `Title` can appear more than once. For example, it may appear in both `Book` and `BookInfo`:

    <book><title>Some Book Title</title>
    <bookinfo>
      <title>Some Book Title</title>
      <author><firstname>Some</firstname><surname>Author</surname>
        </author>
    </bookinfo>
    …

In these contexts, if the `Title` occurs more than once, the same title must be used in both places. It is an error to use different titles, although DocBook has no way to detect the error.

### Future Changes

The `InterfaceDefinition` element will be discarded in DocBook V4.0. It will no longer be available in the content model of this element.

### Parents

These elements contain title: `abstract`, `appendix`, `appendixinfo`, `article`, `articleinfo`, `authorblurb`, `bibliodiv`, `biblioentry`, `bibliography`, `bibliographyinfo`, `bibliomixed`, `bibliomset`, `biblioset`, `blockinfo`, `blockquote`, `book`, `bookinfo`, `calloutlist`, `caution`, `chapter`, `chapterinfo`, `colophon`, `constraintdef`, `dedication`, `equation`, `example`, `figure`, `formalpara`, `glossary`, `glossaryinfo`, `glossdiv`, `important`, `index`, `indexdiv`, `indexinfo`, `itemizedlist`, `legalnotice`, `lot`, `msg`, `msgexplan`, `msgmain`, `msgrel`, `msgset`, `msgsub`, `note`, `objectinfo`, `orderedlist`, `part`, `partinfo`, `partintro`, `personblurb`, `preface`, `prefaceinfo`, `procedure`, `productionset`, `qandadiv`, `qandaset`, `refentryinfo`, `reference`, `referenceinfo`, `refsect1`, `refsect1info`, `refsect2`, `refsect2info`, `refsect3`, `refsect3info`, `refsection`, `refsectioninfo`, `refsynopsisdiv`, `refsynopsisdivinfo`, `sect1`, `sect1info`, `sect2`, `sect2info`, `sect3`, `sect3info`, `sect4`, `sect4info`, `sect5`, `sect5info`, `section`, `sectioninfo`, `segmentedlist`, `set`, `setindex`, `setindexinfo`, `setinfo`, `sidebar`, `sidebarinfo`, `simplesect`, `step`, `table`, `tip`, `toc`, `variablelist`, `warning`.

### Children

The following elements occur in title: `abbrev`, `acronym`, `action`, `anchor`, `application`, `author`, `authorinitials`, `citation`, `citerefentry`, `citetitle`, `classname`, `command`, `computeroutput`, `constant`, `corpauthor`, `database`, `email`, `emphasis`, `envar`, `errorcode`, `errorname`, `errortext`, `errortype`, `exceptionname`, `filename`, `firstterm`, `footnote`, `footnoteref`, `foreignphrase`, `function`, `glossterm`, `guibutton`, `guiicon`, `guilabel`, `guimenu`, `guimenuitem`, `guisubmenu`, `hardware`, `indexterm`, `inlineequation`, `inlinegraphic`, `inlinemediaobject`, `interface`, `interfacename`, `keycap`, `keycode`, `keycombo`, `keysym`, `link`, `literal`, `markup`, `medialabel`, `menuchoice`, `methodname`, `modespec`, `mousebutton`, `nonterminal`, `olink`, `ooclass`, `ooexception`, `oointerface`, `option`, `optional`, `othercredit`, `parameter`, `personname`, `phrase`, `productname`, `productnumber`, `prompt`, `property`, `quote`, `remark`, `replaceable`, `returnvalue`, `revhistory`, `sgmltag`, `structfield`, `structname`, `subscript`, `superscript`, `symbol`, `systemitem`, `token`, `trademark`, `type`, `ulink`, `userinput`, `varname`, `wordasword`, `xref`.

## Attributes

pagenum

  `PageNum` identifies the page on which this `Title` appears in some version of the printed document.

## See Also

`subtitle`, `titleabbrev`.

## Examples

    <!DOCTYPE sect1 PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.1.2//EN"
              "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.1.2/docbookx.dtd">
    <sect1><title>A Sect One</title>
    <para>
    Actual content.
    </para>
    </sect1>

For additional examples, see also `abstract`, `appendix`, `article`, `audioobject`, `beginpage`, `bibliography`, `bibliomset`, `biblioset`, `book`, `bookinfo`, `caution`, `chapter`, `collab`, `contractsponsor`, `equation`, `example`, `figure`, `formalpara`, `glossary`, `graphic`, `highlights`, `html-form`, `index`, `indexterm`, `link`, `lot`, `note`, `olink`, `othercredit`, `para`, `part`, `procedure`, `productionset`, `qandaset`, `refentry`, `reference`, `remark`, `sect1info`, `section`, `segmentedlist`, `set`, `sidebar`, `simplesect`, `table`, `titleabbrev`, `variablelist`, `xref`.

tip |  | titleabbrev

Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.