1 # pdfman: View UNIX manual pages as Portable Document Format (PDF) files
3 `pdfman` converts UNIX manual pages to PDF documents using Ghostscript's
4 `ps2pdf`(1) or Apple's `pstopdf`(1) command (included in macOS up to version 13
5 "Ventura") and displays them by calling `xdg-open`(1) or `open`(1) on the
7 This enhances the useability of the manual pages quite a bit, because you now
8 can make use of your preferred PDF file viewer and all of its functionality.
10 The conversion is only done once and a cached PDF file gets used for subsequent
11 invocations for the same topic.
15 The `pdfman` script makes use of the following tools, which need to be available
16 on the local system in the default search `$PATH`:
18 - `xdg-open`(1) _or_ `open`(1).
19 - Either `ps2pdf`(1) of the Ghostscript suite _or_ `pstopdf`(1) which was
20 included in Apple macOS up to version 13 "Ventura".
22 Note: `pdfman` silently falls back to "normal" `man`(1) behavior if any of the
23 required tools is _not_ found.
28 pdfman [-v] [-T] [<section>] <topic> ...
29 pdfman <man(1) options> <arguments> ...
30 pdfman {--help|--version>}
33 - `-v`: Enable verbose output.
34 - `-T`: Force regular `man`(1) behavior, don't use PDF files.
38 You can setup an alias from `man` to `pdfman` in your shell startup files to not