twill(1) General Commands Manual twill(1)
NAME
twill, twill-refsort - translate a literate programming WEB to TeX with
mini-indexes
SYNOPSIS
twill [-x] webfile[.web] [{changefile[.ch]|-} [outfile[.tex]]]
twill-refsort < reffile.ref > sreffile.sref
DESCRIPTION
The twill program is used to create a TeX file for viewing a literate
program written in WEB. The output TeX file name is formed by adding
.tex to the root of the file name.
twill is like weave(1), but also supplies cross-reference information
in the form of `mini-indexes' for each spread of pages, for identifiers
used on that spread, and a `master index' at the end that it gathers
automatically.
You need to run twill twice, once to prime the pump and once to get
decent answers. Moreover, you must run the output twice through TeX.
For a program foo.web, after a first tex foo you will have output that
looks like final pages except that the entries of mini-indexes will not
be alphabetized. The first run produces an auxiliary file named
foo.ref.
Run twill-refsort <foo.ref >foo.sref and then another tex foo will
produce alphabetized output.
OPTIONS
See tex(1) for details of command-line parsing, and weave(1) for
options accepted.
ENVIRONMENT
The environment variable WEBINPUTS is used to search for the input
files, If it is not set, it uses the system default. See the Kpathsea
manual at https://tug.org/kpathsea for the details of the searching.
BUGS
The table of contents file, CONTENTS.tex, is generated but ignored
(unless macros in twimac-web.tex are redefined).
FILES
$TEXMFMAIN/tex/plain/cweb/cwebbin/twimac-web.tex
TeX macros used by twill output.
SEE ALSO
tangle(1) for references, authors, and other information about WEB in
general.
Donald E. Knuth, Mini-indexes for literate programs, Software-Concepts
and Tools, 15(1):2-11, 1994.
https://arxiv.org/abs/cs/9401102
CTWILL program source, section 287:
https://mirror.ctan.org/info/knuth-pdf/cweb/ctwill.pdf
(Not all features described there are available in the older twill
system, but you will get the gist.)
Public discussion list and bug reports: https://lists.tug.org/tex-k
Web2C 2026 3 February 2026 twill(1)
texlive-bin 2026.78235 - Generated Thu Mar 5 16:07:44 CST 2026