The Yodl package is distributed with scripts  tt(yodl2tex), tt(yodl2html) and 
other tt(yodl2...) drivers. Basically, an invocation like

verb(yodl2tex file)

starts the tt(yodl) program to process tt(file.yo) and to write output to
tt(file.tex). The extension of the input file, tt(.yo), is the default Yodl
extension; the extension of the output file, tt(.tex), is given by the name of
the shell script. The script tt(yodl2html) hence writes to a file with the
extension tt(.html).

Furthermore, the conversion scripts auto-load the right macro file: tt(tex.yo)
for LaTeX conversions, tt(html.yo) for HTML conversions, etc.. The macro files
are of course found in the system-wide include directory.

When the conversion scripts are started without arguments, usage information
is shown.

The output files are, depending on the conversion:

startit()
    
    it() For LaTeX conversions, one output file with the extension tt(.tex) is
    written. 
    
    it() For HTML conversions, several files may be written holding the
    separate chapters of the original document. When the document is not
    sectioned by chapters, only one output file is created.
    
    The `main' output file always has the name of the input file but with
    extension tt(.html). This file holds the document title and the table of
    contents. When more than one output files are created, then they are named
    tt(name01.html), tt(name02.html) etc., where tt(name) is the original name
    of the input file. E.g., a document tt(prog.yo) might lead to
    tt(prog.html), tt(prog01.html) etc..
    
    it() For tt(groff) conversions two output formats are supported: the 
    tt(man) format (invoked by tt(yodl2man) and resulting in a file tt(.man)), 
    and the tt(ms) format (invoked by tt(yodl2ms) and resulting in a file 
    tt(.ms)). The differences between the tt(man) and tt(ms) macro sets of 
    tt(groff) make different converters and output files necessary.
    
    it() For SGML conversions, one output file with the extension tt(.sgml) is
    written. 
    
    it() For ASCII conversions, the converter is named tt(yodl2txt) and one 
    output file with the extension tt(.txt) is created.
    
endit()

The Yodl package furthermore holds `second-step' scripts, which are:

startit()

    it() The conversion script tt(yodl2dvi) is one more step on top of 
    tt(yodl2tex): it also runs LaTeX on the resulting tt(.tex) file. This 
    script tries to be smart about it; when LaTeX' logfile indicates warnings 
    about unresolved labels, the LaTeX process is started once again. This 
    process is repeated up to three times.

    it() The script tt(yodl2manless) is an extra step to tt(yodl2man): it  
    converts a tt(.yo) file to tt(.man) format, and runs tt(groff) on it, 
    piping the output to a less-like pager for viewing.
    
    it() Similar to tt(yodl2manless), the script tt(yodl2msless) starts the 
    tt(ms) converter and pipes the tt(groff) output through a pager. 
    
    it() The script tt(yodl2msps) is an extra step on top of the tt(ms) 
    converter; it converts the tt(ms) output file into PostScript format.
    
endit()

The scripts tt(yodl2manless) and tt(yodl2msless) start tt(groff) with the 
instruction to produce plain ASCII text. The tt(groff) program then (usually) 
outputs boldface as overstrike, and italics as underlined. This convention is 
most often used, and is meant to provide some degree of font alternation for 
printed ASCII documents. If you want to convert a Yodl document to em(true) 
ASCII, without overstrikes or underlines, take a look at the bf(C) program 
tt(striproff) which is included in the Yodl distribution as 
tt(misc/striproff.c). This program is not compiled and installed by the 
default Yodl installation process, but is only distributed as an example. If 
you choose to compile and install it, you can use it as follows, assuming that 
you have a manpage document tt(mymanpage.yo) and an article tt(myarticle.yo):

verb(\
% yodl2manless mymanpage | striproff > mymanpage.txt
% yodl2msless myarticle  | striproff > myarticle.txt)
