How to read manual pages

Overview

The man command opens locally installed reference documentation. A manual page commonly contains NAME, SYNOPSIS, DESCRIPTION, OPTIONS, and SEE ALSO sections.

Square brackets in a synopsis usually mean optional text; do not type the brackets themselves.

Open and navigate

Open a page by giving a command name. Scroll with arrow keys or Page Up/Page Down, search with /word, move to the next match with n, and quit with q.

man ls
man cp
man 5 crontab

Useful options

• man -k keyword searches page names and descriptions
• man -f command gives a short description
• command --help often provides a quicker summary
• Section numbers distinguish topics with the same name, such as commands and configuration files

Tips

Start with the SYNOPSIS and OPTIONS sections, then search for the option you saw in an example. Commands vary by installed version, so local documentation is often more reliable than an old web page.