\frontmatter & \mainmatter & \backmatter (LaTeX2e unofficial reference manual (November 2018))

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### 6.7 `\frontmatter`, `\mainmatter`, `\backmatter`

Synopsis, one of:

    \frontmatter
    \mainmatter
    \backmatter

Format a `book` class document differently according to which part of the document is being produced. All three commands are optional.

Traditionally, a book’s front matter contains such things as the title page, an abstract, a table of contents, a preface, a list of notations, a list of figures, and a list of tables. (Some of these front matter pages, such as the title page, are traditionally not numbered.) The back matter may contain such things as a glossary, notes, a bibliography, and an index.

The `\frontmatter` declaration makes the pages numbered in lowercase roman, and makes chapters not numbered, although each chapter’s title appears in the table of contents; if you use other sectioning commands here, use the `*`-version (see Sectioning). The `\mainmatter` changes the behavior back to the expected version, and resets the page number. The `\backmatter` leaves the page numbering alone but switches the chapters back to being not numbered. See Larger book template for an example using the three.

Unofficial LaTeX2e reference manual