The Textlefile

textle stores the pipelines and configuration for a project in a file called the Textlefile. This file looks a bit like an INI file, but with some key changes.

Lines starting with a # are ignored. The file always begins with a version declaration. The current version is 1.

Next, there are a set of key=value declarations that apply to the entire project -- these are called global options. The format of a value is either a "string", an integer (12), or a boolean (true or false). The key does not have quotes around it. Lists are created by specifying the same key multiple times, ordering is top to bottom.

Next are a set of pipeline declarations, each starting with the line ---. Next is the pipeline in the same format as on the command line, and then a bunch of INI-style sections, with the same type of key value pairs as above.

A full example is reproduced below.

version 1

externals="/home/matthew/mla_template.tex"
---

pandoc.markdown:essay.md -> xetex + biber:bib.bib -> pdf:essay.pdf

[pandoc]
bib_source="biblatex"
template="mla_template.tex"

As you can see, the INI-style sections correspond to options per step type. A full list of options can be found in the usage reference.

Specifying options to textle new

You can also specify options when running textle new, however all pipelines will get the same step options. To do this, you can pass options of the form --<step or global>:<option name>:[<type>] <value>.

The <type> is optional, and if not present will be guessed based on the text, otherwise it is str, int, or bool. <step or global> is either a step type or the word global, which sets global options. As with the format itself, specifying the same option multiple times will create a list, ordered left to right.

For example, to create the Textlefile shown above:

$ textle new "pandoc:markdown:essay.md -> xetex + biber:bib.bib -> pdf:essay.pdf" --global:externals /home/matthew/mla_template.tex --pandoc:bib_source biblatex --pandoc:template mla_template.tex