MANPAGER

Section: Misc. Reference Manual Pages (1 )
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NAME

manpager - a pager for man which handles font changes

SYNOPSIS

manpager [ -z ] [ -s | -fun ] file

DESCRIPTION

Manpager is a program similar to less(1), which allows backwards movement in the file as well as forward movement. It was written to view manpages formatted with nroff(1) which has the ability to generate the proper escape sequences. It is not as comprehensive as less but provides most of the functionality. Manpager does provide a significant advantage over less in that it will interpret certain escape sequences (see below), turning them into font changes so that bold and italic (or underline) text in manpages can be viewed.

Manpager works interactively. It can, however, be used as a filter to remove the escape sequences it finds if it detects that stdout is not the console. This occurs if output of manpager is redirected as in:

        manpager file >newfile

All input on stdin is ignored in this mode.

However, when manpager is invoked automatically by man(1), it is placed in interactive mode. Like less(1), interactive commands are based on both more and vi. Some commands may be preceeded by a decimal number, called N in the descriptions below. The number is used by some commands, as indicated. Commands not using N ignore it.

Manpager can also handle compressed files, i.e. those compressed with compress(1), if the -z option is given.

OPTIONS

The following command line options are recognized:

-z

Decompress input file while reading. It is assumed that the file was compressed with compress(1).

-s

Use standard system font. No internal font switching occurs, regardless of escapes sequences. Non printable characters are represented by an octal string:

: \xxx

where ``xxx'' is the octal representation of the ASCII character. This makes manpager function more or less like less(1).

-fun

Use an alternate (internal) font for fun!

Note that -s and -fun are mutually exclusive.

COMMANDS

Commands are broken down into 3 categories: those for movement within the file, those for searching for strings, and those for control. The following commands are available when manpager is running interactively:

Commands For Movement:

g          go to line N (default 1)
G          go to last line
f, space   forward N screens (default 1)
b          backward N screens (default 1)
d          forward N half screens (default 1)
u          backward N half screen (default 1)
j,e,CR     forward N lines (default 1)
k,y        backward N lines (default 1)

Commands For Searching:

/string    search forward for string (no regular expressions)
?string    search backward for string
n          repeat last search (backward or forward)

Other Commands:

q,Q        quit
r          repaint screen
h,H        help
=          show file name and position
V          show version

The commands g, f, b, d, u, j, and k all accept optional numerical prefixes, N. To change their defaults, enter a number, then the command. For example, enter ``22g'' to go to line 22 or ``2f'' to advance 2 screens.

ESCAPES AND FONTS

Currently, the fonts for manpager reside in the program itself and are only available for monochrome. The fonts are changed on the fly as escape sequences are read, and replace the system 8x16 font only.

The escape sequences for the fonts are as follows ("\E" means the ESCAPE character):

        \E[9m           begin using alternate char set
        \E[8m           begin using small char set
        \E[7m           enter standout mode (reverse video)
        \E[4m           enter undeline mode
        \E[1m           enter bold mode
        \E[m or \E[0m   cancel all modes (normal)

These escape sequences are consistent with vt100 or ANSI terminal behavior, except the alternate and small character sets.