--- a/doc/interpreter/numbers.txi
+++ b/doc/interpreter/numbers.txi
@@ -403,6 +403,25 @@
 number of elements is known, you should use the @code{linspace} function
 instead (@pxref{Special Utility Matrices}).
 
+When adding a scalar to a range, subtracting a scalar from it (or subtracting a
+range from a scalar) and multiplying by scalar, Octave will attempt to avoid
+unpacking the range and keep the result as a range, too, if it can determine
+that it is safe to do so. For instance, doing
+
+@example
+a = 2*(1:1e7) - 1;
+@end example
+
+will produce the same result as @samp{1:2:2e7-1}, but without ever forming a
+vector with ten million elements.
+
+Using zero as an increment in the colon notation, as @samp{1:0:1} is not
+allowed, because a division by zero would occur in determining the number of
+range elements. However, ranges with zero increment (i.e. all elements equal)
+are useful, especially in indexing, and Octave allows them to be constructed
+using the built-in function @dfn{ones}. Note that because a range must be a row
+vector, @samp{ones (1, 10)} produces a range, while @samp{ones (10, 1)} does not.
+
 When Octave parses a range expression, it examines the elements of the
 expression to determine whether they are all constants.  If they are, it
 replaces the range expression with a single range constant.