man can be a pain to read… and there’s lots of alternatives out there and one I’ve just started playing with is cheat
man man will give you this plus a billion more lines of docs, which is useful when you need it…
MAN(1) Manual pager utils MAN(1)
NAME
man - an interface to the on-line reference manuals
SYNOPSIS
man [-C file] [-d] [-D] [--warnings[=warnings]] [-R encoding] [-L locale] [-m system[,...]] [-M path] [-S list] [-e extension] [-i|-I] [--regex|--wildcard] [--names-only] [-a] [-u] [--no-subpages] [-P pager] [-r prompt] [-7] [-E encoding] [--no-hyphenation]
[--no-justification] [-p string] [-t] [-T[device]] [-H[browser]] [-X[dpi]] [-Z] [[section] page[.section] ...] ...
man -k [apropos options] regexp ...
man -K [-w|-W] [-S list] [-i|-I] [--regex] [section] term ...
man -f [whatis options] page ...
man -l [-C file] [-d] [-D] [--warnings[=warnings]] [-R encoding] [-L locale] [-P pager] [-r prompt] [-7] [-E encoding] [-p string] [-t] [-T[device]] [-H[browser]] [-X[dpi]] [-Z] file ...
man -w|-W [-C file] [-d] [-D] page ...
man -c [-C file] [-d] [-D] page ...
man [-?V]
DESCRIPTION
man is the system's manual pager. Each page argument given to man is normally the name of a program, utility or function. The manual page associated with each of these arguments is then found and displayed. A section, if provided, will direct man to look
only in that section of the manual. The default action is to search in all of the available sections following a pre-defined order ("1 n l 8 3 2 3posix 3pm 3perl 3am 5 4 9 6 7" by default, unless overridden by the SECTION directive in /etc/manpath.config),
and to show only the first page found, even if page exists in several sections.
The table below shows the section numbers of the manual followed by the types of pages they contain.
1 Executable programs or shell commands
2 System calls (functions provided by the kernel)
3 Library calls (functions within program libraries)
4 Special files (usually found in /dev)
5 File formats and conventions eg /etc/passwd
6 Games
7 Miscellaneous (including macro packages and conventions), e.g. man(7), groff(7)
8 System administration commands (usually only for root)
9 Kernel routines [Non standard]
A manual page consists of several sections.
Conventional section names include NAME, SYNOPSIS, CONFIGURATION, DESCRIPTION, OPTIONS, EXIT STATUS, RETURN VALUE, ERRORS, ENVIRONMENT, FILES, VERSIONS, CONFORMING TO, NOTES, BUGS, EXAMPLE, AUTHORS, and SEE ALSO.
The following conventions apply to the SYNOPSIS section and can be used as a guide in other sections.
bold text type exactly as shown.
italic text replace with appropriate argument.
[-abc] any or all arguments within [ ] are optional.
-a|-b options delimited by | cannot be used together.
argument ... argument is repeatable.
[expression] ... entire expression within [ ] is repeatable.
Exact rendering may vary depending on the output device. For instance, man will usually not be able to render italics when running in a terminal, and will typically use underlined or coloured text instead.
The command or function illustration is a pattern that should match all possible invocations. In some cases it is advisable to illustrate several exclusive invocations as is shown in the SYNOPSIS section of this manual page.
EXAMPLES
man ls
Display the manual page for the item (program) ls.
man man.7
Display the manual page for macro package man from section 7.
But what if you don’t? #
cheat man
# To convert a man page to pdf:
man -t bash | ps2pdf - bash.pdf
# To view the ascii chart:
man 7 ascii
You get tiny examples to remind you of what you probably are trying to do!