Linux Man Page Howto

Jens Schweikhardt

<howto@schweikhardt.net>

Pradeep Padala - Conversion from HTML to DocBook v4.1.

v0.1, 2002-09-07

Revision History
Revision 0.1	2002-09-07	Revised by: ppadala
Conversion from HTML to Docbook v4.1

$Id: Man-Page.sgml,v 1.2 2002/12/15 17:51:43 schweikh Exp schweikh $

This HOWTO explains what you should bear in mind when you are going to write on-line documentation -- a so-called man page -- that you want to make accessible via the man(1) command. Throughout this HOWTO, a manual entry is simply referred to as a man page, regardless of actual length and without sexist intention.

Table of Contents
1. A few thoughts on documentation
2. How are man pages accessed?
3. How should a formatted man page look?
4. How do I document several programs/functions in a single man page?
5. Which macro package should I use?
6. What preprocessors may I use?
7. Should I distribute source and/or already formatted documentation?
8. What are the font conventions?
9. Polishing your man page
10. How do I get a plain text man page without all that ^H^_ stuff?
11. How do I get a high quality PostScript man page?
12. How do I get `apropos' and `whatis' to work?
13. Copying conditions
14. Acknowledgements
15. Changelog