The red-covered yearbook, compiled by the Central Office of Church Statistics and published by Libreria Editrice Vaticana, is mostly in Italian.

A yearbook of the Catholic Church was published, with some interruptions, from 1716 to 1859 by the Cracas printing firm in Rome, under the title Information for the Year ... (Italian: Notizie per l'Anno ...) From 1851, a department of the Holy See began producing a different publication called Hierarchy of the Holy Roman Catholic Apostolic Church Worldwide (Italian: Gerarchia della Santa Chiesa Cattolica Apostolica Romana in Tutto L'Orbe), which took the title Annuario Pontificio in 1860 but ceased publication in 1870.

From 1912 to 1924, it included not only lists of names, but also brief illustrative notes on departments of the Roman Curia and on certain posts within the papal court, a practice to which it returned in 1940.

For some years, beginning in 1898, the Maison de la Bonne Presse publishing house of Paris produced a similar yearbook in French called Annuaire Pontifical Catholique, not compiled by the Holy See.

For example, the 1942 Annuario Pontificio recognized the decisions of the Council of Pisa (1409), listing three popes for the period: Gregory XII (1406–1409), Alexander V (1409–1410), and John XXIII (1410–1415).