.\" $OpenBSD: man.conf.5,v 1.8 2020/02/10 14:42:03 schwarze Exp $ .\" .\" Copyright (c) 2015, 2017 Ingo Schwarze <schwarze@openbsd.org> .\" .\" Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any .\" purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above .\" copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies. .\" .\" THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES .\" WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF .\" MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR .\" ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES .\" WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN .\" ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF .\" OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE. .\" .Dd $Mdocdate: 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. .Pp 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. .Pp The following directives are supported: .Bl -tag -width Ds .It 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. .Pp 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 . .Pp Creating a .Xr mandoc.db 5 database with .Xr makewhatis 8 in each directory configured with .Ic 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. .It 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. .Pp .Bl -column fragment integer "ascii, utf8" -compact .It Ar option Ta Ar value Ta used by Fl T Ta purpose .It Ta Ta Ta .It Ic fragment Ta none Ta Cm html Ta print only body .It Ic includes Ta string Ta Cm html Ta path to header files .It Ic indent Ta integer Ta Cm ascii , utf8 Ta left margin .It Ic man Ta string Ta Cm html Ta path for \&Xr links .It Ic paper Ta string Ta Cm ps , pdf Ta paper size .It Ic style Ta string Ta Cm html Ta CSS file .It Ic toc Ta none Ta Cm html Ta print table of contents .It Ic width Ta integer Ta Cm ascii , utf8 Ta right margin .El .El .Sh FILES .Bl -tag -width /etc/examples/man.conf -compact .It Pa /etc/man.conf .It Pa /etc/examples/man.conf .El .Sh EXAMPLES The following configuration file reproduces the defaults: installing it is equivalent to not having a .Nm file at all. .Bd -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 .Bx 4.3 Reno . For .Ox 5.8 , it was redesigned from scratch, aiming for simplicity. .Sh AUTHORS .An Ingo Schwarze Aq Mt schwarze@openbsd.org