## 8.6 `@pxref`

The parenthetical reference command, `@pxref`, is nearly the same as `@xref`, but you use it only inside parentheses and you do not type a comma or period after the command’s closing brace. The command differs from `@xref` in two ways:

1. TeX typesets the reference for the printed manual with a lower case ‘see’ rather than an upper case ‘See’.
2. The Info formatting commands automatically end the reference with a closing colon or period.

Because one type of formatting automatically inserts closing punctuation and the other does not, you should use `@pxref` only inside parentheses as part of another sentence. Also, you yourself should not insert punctuation after the reference, as you do with `@xref`.

`@pxref` is designed so that the output looks right and works right between parentheses both in printed output and in an Info file. In a printed manual, a closing comma or period should not follow a cross reference within parentheses; such punctuation is wrong. But in an Info file, suitable closing punctuation must follow the cross reference so Info can recognize its end. `@pxref` spares you the need to use complicated methods to put a terminator into one form of the output and not the other.

With one argument, a parenthetical cross reference looks like this:

    … storms cause flooding (@pxref{Hurricanes}) …

which produces

    … storms cause flooding (*Note Hurricanes::) …

and

> … storms cause flooding (see Section 6.7 [Hurricanes], page 72) …

With two arguments, a parenthetical cross reference has this template:

    … (@pxref{node-name, cross-reference-name}) …

which produces

    … (*Note cross-reference-name: node-name.) …

and

> … (see Section nnn [node-name], page ppp) …

`@pxref` can be used with up to five arguments just like `@xref` (see section `@xref`).

> Please note: Use `@pxref` only as a parenthetical reference. Do not try to use `@pxref` as a clause in a sentence. It will look bad in either the Info file, the printed output, or both.

> Also, parenthetical cross references look best at the ends of sentences. Although you may write them in the middle of a sentence, that location breaks up the flow of text.

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