A single <frontmatter> element can be placed early in your <book> or <article>, after some metadata, such as the overall <title>. It is optional, but likely highly desirable. The following subsections describe the items that may be employed within the <frontmatter>. Most are optional, and some may be repeated. An <article> differs in that it must contain a <bibinfo> and <titlepage> and then may only contain an <abstract>. Generally, these will get default titles, localized in the language of your document, but these defaults may also be replaced by giving a <title> element. None of these divisions themselves is numbered, precluding any content within that is numbered. So, for example, no <figure> may be included. But you could choose to include an <image>, perhaps within a <biography>.
If a component of the front matter cannot be numbered, how best to subdivide something like a <preface>? This is a good use of the <paragraphs> element. It allows for a (minimal) title, but cannot be subdivided further. See the later part of Section 4.6 for more about this exceptional element.
These elements must appear in your source in the order given below, and will appear in your ouput in the same order, which is a generally accepted order used in the production of books. So, for example, even if you author an <acknowledgement> between two <preface>, your output may (will?) place the Acknowledgement before the first Preface.
Required. The <bibinfo> element may contain metadata about your document, including <author>, <editor>, <credit>, <date>, <keywords>, <edition>, <website> and <copyright>. Additional elements to capture bibliogrphic information are planned.
Each author and editor should be described in their own <author> or <editor> element, which are structured identically (in output, authors are listed first, followed by editors, sometimes using less prominent formatting). An author can be designated as the corresponding author using the @corresponding attribute.
The name of an author or editor should be enclosed in a <personname> element. Following this, affiliation information can be provided either by using elements <department>, <institution>, and <location> (each of which can be further structured with <line> tags), or by enclosing these in an <affiliation> element. (Grouping affiliation details is useful when an author might have multiple affiliations.)
An author or editor can also have an <email>, <biographcy>, or <support> element. The <support> element can be used to describe funding sources particular to that author as required by some journals. Notice that the <support> element could also be a child of <bibinfo> itself, in which case it would appear as applying to the entire document, not just an individual author.
Many journals require papers to contain a list of keywords or subject classification codes. These are both captured by the <keywords> element. This groups a collection of <keyword> elements, each of which is a single keyword or subject classification code.
To distinguish between author-provided keywords and subject classification codes, the <keywords> element can have attributes @authority and @variant. As of 2025-02-18, the values of these attributes that are recognized are given in Table 4.25.1.
For subject classification codes, to distinguish between primary or secondary codes, the <keyword> element can have the optional attribute @primary (with value yes or no). Put primary="yes" on the first primary keyword, and primary="no" on the first secondary keyword. Alternatively, using secondary="yes" on the first secondary keyword is also acceptable.
Optional. When present, the <titlepage> should contain a single empty element <titlepage-items/>, that will collect the appropriate elements from <bibinfo> to generate a titlepage.
Optional; only available within a <book>. The front colophon. (There is also a back colophon, see Subsection 4.26.6). Sometimes this is also called the copyright page. The <colophon> element can be given a @label to produce a specific file name in HTML builds. The only allowable (and required) child of the <colophon> is the empty element <colophon-items/>, which will automatically bring in appropriate elements from <bibinfo>.
A single <acknowledgement> element (note spelling), that becomes a division, and so can contain paragraphs, lists, etc. The Chicago Manual of Style [1, 1.52] suggests that if these are short, they may be contained in a preface.
Multiple prefaces are a distinct possibility, and in this case providing a different <title> for each would be essential. Examples might include: “Preface to the Third Edition”, “How to Use this Book”, or “To the Student”. More ad-hoc material, such as a translator’s note, can be handled as a preface.
Best Practice4.25.2.Understand the Role of a Preface.
Chicago Manual of Style[1, 1.49] begins with “Material normally contained in an author’s preface includes reasons for undertaking the work, method of research, …” Note that a preface is not introductory content and is not an introduction. It is written from the author’s point-of-view, and may include information about why they are qualified to write on the topic of the book. If there are several editions, the prefaces to the newer editions are placed first. See the related Best Practice 26.3.1.
