For in Automake 2.0 (DONE) -------------------------- We will drop split info files in Automake 2.0. See automake bug#13351: . Basically, it has been confirmed that the original reason behind the existence of split info files was indeed "efficiency, especially memory size": So split info files have lost their reason d'etre on modern systems (where even Emacs has become a lightweight program ;-). And you are not using an embedded system to read Info documentation, right? In addition, it appears that the use of split info files (at least the way Automake-generated rules have been handling them for a long time) can cause real problems in some (admittedly quite corner-case) situations; see automake bug#12320: . This change should be completely transparent to the developer (no adjustments needed to be made to Makefile.am or other parts of the build system). In case some CI system or overly picky build script used to rely on that feature, they'll have to be adjusted; but that is expected to be a rare occurrence, and thus a price worth pay for the nice simplifications and the fixlets this planned change will offer us.