xref: /freebsd/contrib/mandoc/man.conf.5 (revision cc68614da8232d8baaca0ae0d0dd8f890f06623e)
1.\"	$Id: man.conf.5,v 1.8 2020/02/10 14:42:10 schwarze Exp $
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3.\" Copyright (c) 2015, 2017 Ingo Schwarze <schwarze@openbsd.org>
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17.Dd $Mdocdate: February 10 2020 $
18.Dt MAN.CONF 5
19.Os
20.Sh NAME
21.Nm man.conf
22.Nd configuration file for man
23.Sh DESCRIPTION
24This is the configuration file
25for the
26.Xr man 1 ,
27.Xr apropos 1 ,
28and
29.Xr makewhatis 8
30utilities.
31Its presence, and all directives, are optional.
32.Pp
33This file is an ASCII text file.
34Leading whitespace on lines, lines starting with
35.Sq # ,
36and blank lines are ignored.
37Words are separated by whitespace.
38The first word on each line is the name of a configuration directive.
39.Pp
40The following directives are supported:
41.Bl -tag -width Ds
42.It Ic manpath Ar path
43Override the default search
44.Ar path
45for
46.Xr man 1 ,
47.Xr apropos 1 ,
48and
49.Xr makewhatis 8 .
50It can be used multiple times to specify multiple paths,
51with the order determining the manual page search order.
52.Pp
53Each path is a tree containing subdirectories
54whose names consist of the strings
55.Sq man
56and/or
57.Sq cat
58followed by the names of sections, usually single digits.
59The former are supposed to contain unformatted manual pages in
60.Xr mdoc 7
61and/or
62.Xr man 7
63format; file names should end with the name of the section
64preceded by a dot.
65The latter should contain preformatted manual pages;
66file names should end with
67.Ql .0 .
68.Pp
69Creating a
70.Xr mandoc.db 5
71database with
72.Xr makewhatis 8
73in each directory configured with
74.Ic manpath
75is recommended and necessary for
76.Xr apropos 1
77to work, and also for
78.Xr man 1
79on operating systems like
80.Ox
81that install each manual page with only one file name in the file system,
82even if it documents multiple utilities or functions.
83.It Ic output Ar option Op Ar value
84Configure the default value of an output option.
85These directives are overridden by the
86.Fl O
87command line options of the same names.
88For details, see the
89.Xr mandoc 1
90manual.
91.Pp
92.Bl -column fragment integer "ascii, utf8" -compact
93.It Ar option   Ta Ar value Ta used by Fl T Ta purpose
94.It Ta Ta Ta
95.It Ic fragment Ta none     Ta Cm html Ta print only body
96.It Ic includes Ta string   Ta Cm html Ta path to header files
97.It Ic indent   Ta integer  Ta Cm ascii , utf8 Ta left margin
98.It Ic man      Ta string   Ta Cm html Ta path for \&Xr links
99.It Ic paper    Ta string   Ta Cm ps , pdf Ta paper size
100.It Ic style    Ta string   Ta Cm html Ta CSS file
101.It Ic toc      Ta none     Ta Cm html Ta print table of contents
102.It Ic width    Ta integer  Ta Cm ascii , utf8 Ta right margin
103.El
104.El
105.Sh FILES
106.Bl -tag -width /etc/examples/man.conf -compact
107.It Pa /etc/man.conf
108.El
109.Sh EXAMPLES
110The following configuration file reproduces the defaults:
111installing it is equivalent to not having a
112.Nm
113file at all.
114.Bd -literal -offset indent
115manpath /usr/share/man
116manpath /usr/X11R6/man
117manpath /usr/local/man
118.Ed
119.Sh SEE ALSO
120.Xr apropos 1 ,
121.Xr man 1 ,
122.Xr makewhatis 8
123.Sh HISTORY
124A relatively complicated
125.Nm
126file format first appeared in
127.Bx 4.3 Reno .
128For
129.Ox 5.8 ,
130it was redesigned from scratch, aiming for simplicity.
131.Sh AUTHORS
132.An Ingo Schwarze Aq Mt schwarze@openbsd.org
133