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 Copyright (c) 2015, 2017 Ingo Schwarze <schwarze (at] openbsd.org>

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.Dd February 10, 2020
.Dt MAN.CONF 5
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm man.conf
.Nd configuration file for man
.Sh DESCRIPTION
This is the configuration file
for the
.Xr man 1 ,
.Xr apropos 1 ,
and
.Xr makewhatis 8
utilities.
Its presence, and all directives, are optional.

p
This file is an ASCII text file.
Leading whitespace on lines, lines starting with
.Sq # ,
and blank lines are ignored.
Words are separated by whitespace.
The first word on each line is the name of a configuration directive.

p
The following directives are supported:
l -tag -width Ds t Ic manpath Ar path Override the default search
.Ar path
for
.Xr man 1 ,
.Xr apropos 1 ,
and
.Xr makewhatis 8 .
It can be used multiple times to specify multiple paths,
with the order determining the manual page search order.

p
Each path is a tree containing subdirectories
whose names consist of the strings
.Sq man
and/or
.Sq cat
followed by the names of sections, usually single digits.
The former are supposed to contain unformatted manual pages in
.Xr mdoc 7
and/or
.Xr man 7
format; file names should end with the name of the section
preceded by a dot.
The latter should contain preformatted manual pages;
file names should end with
.Ql .0 .

p
Creating a
.Xr mandoc.db 5
database with
.Xr makewhatis 8
in each directory configured with
c manpath is recommended and necessary for
.Xr apropos 1
to work, and also for
.Xr man 1
on operating systems like
.Ox
that install each manual page with only one file name in the file system,
even if it documents multiple utilities or functions.
t Ic output Ar option Op Ar value Configure the default value of an output option.
These directives are overridden by the
.Fl O
command line options of the same names.
For details, see the
.Xr mandoc 1
manual.

p
l -column fragment integer "ascii, utf8" -compact t Ar option Ta Ar value Ta used by Fl T Ta purpose t Ta Ta Ta t Ic fragment Ta none Ta Cm html Ta print only body t Ic includes Ta string Ta Cm html Ta path to header files t Ic indent Ta integer Ta Cm ascii , utf8 Ta left margin t Ic man Ta string Ta Cm html Ta path for Xr links t Ic paper Ta string Ta Cm ps , pdf Ta paper size t Ic style Ta string Ta Cm html Ta CSS file t Ic toc Ta none Ta Cm html Ta print table of contents t Ic width Ta integer Ta Cm ascii , utf8 Ta right margin .El
.El
.Sh FILES
l -tag -width /etc/examples/man.conf -compact t Pa /etc/man.conf .El
.Sh EXAMPLES
The following configuration file reproduces the defaults:
installing it is equivalent to not having a
.Nm
file at all.
d -literal -offset indent manpath /usr/share/man
manpath /usr/X11R6/man
manpath /usr/local/man
.Ed
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr apropos 1 ,
.Xr man 1 ,
.Xr makewhatis 8
.Sh HISTORY
A relatively complicated
.Nm
file format first appeared in
x 4.3 Reno . For
.Ox 5.8 ,
it was redesigned from scratch, aiming for simplicity.
.Sh AUTHORS
.An Ingo Schwarze Aq Mt schwarze (at] openbsd.org