Loading ...How do I print out a Linux man or info page?
Some time it is necessary to print a Linux man or info page. To print a ls command man page on command line type following command:
$ man ls | col -b | lpr -P hp1_floor2
Where,
col -b : To format man page output, it will not show any special character such as backspaces
lpr -P hp1_floor2 : hp1_floor2 is the printer name of the Linux/UNIX printer queue
To print the man page with effects such as italic and bold fonts on HP Laser Jet printer:
$ zcat /usr/share/man/man1/ls.1.gz | groff -man -Tps | lpr -P hp1_floor2
Or save man page as ps file:
zcat /usr/share/man/man1/ls.1.gz | groff -man -Tps >top.ps
Where,
zcat : Open compress /usr/share/man/man1/ls.1.gz file
groff : Go through groff document formatting system, which is responsible for formatting of man page with ffects such as italic and bold fonts on both screen and printer
lpr -P hp1_floor2 : hp1_floor2 is the printer name of the Linux/UNIX printer queue
Here is a shell script that we have installed on all Linux workstations, it saves man page in a text file and later user can print it using lpr command.
#!/bin/bash # Linux shell script to save man pages to text file # so that later user can print them CMDS="$@" OUTDIR="/tmp/$USER.man" [ ! -d $OUTDIR ] && mkdir -p $OUTDIR : for i in $CMDS do man $i col -b > $OUTDIR/$i.txt done echo "**********************************************************" echo "All man pages saved to $OUTDIR directory" echo "Just goto \"$OUTDIR\" directory and type following command to print page:" echo "lpr *.txt" echo "**********************************************************" exit 0
Just type the script-name followed by Linux commands, for example to print a man page of ls and bash type
$ saveman "ls bash"
Related: How do I print or make hard copies of Linux man and info pages?
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