Book frontispiece Book frontispiece A frontispiece in books is a decorative or informative illustration facing a book's title page—on the left-hand, or verso, page opposite the right-hand, or recto, page. While some books depict thematic elements, other books feature the author's portrait as the frontispiece. In medieval illuminated manuscripts, a presentation miniature showing the book or text being presented (by whom and to whom varies) was often used as a frontispiece. The word comes from the French "frontispice", or the late Latin "frontispicium", from the Latin "frons" ('forehead') and "specere" ('to look at'). It was synonymous with 'metoposcopy'. In English, it was
Table of contents In some cases, the page number appears before the text. If a book or document contains chapters, articles, or stories by different authors, their names usually appear in the table of contents. Matter preceding the table of contents is generally not listed there. However, all pages except the outside cover are counted, and the table of contents is often numbered with a lowercase Roman numeral page number. Many popular word processors, such as Microsoft Word, WordPerfect, and StarWriter are capable of automatically generating a table of contents if the author of the text uses specific styles for chapters, sections, subsections,