Tech Tip: Color man Pages

July 2nd, 2009 by Jose Filipe Lopes Santos in

Your rating: None Average: 4.8 (13 votes)

To add a bit of color to your man pages install the most pager. For most DEB based distros: 

  $ sudo apt-get install most

For most RPM based distros: 

  $ yum install most

Failing these, get the source here.

Now set the pager used by man and try running man: 

  $ export MANPAGER="/usr/bin/most -s
  # or export MANPAGER="/usr/local/bin/most -s"
  $ man bash

Add the setting of MANPAGER to your shell ~/.profile to make the setting available when you login.

Color man Pages __________________________
AttachmentSize
color-manpages.jpg141.53 KB

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cantormath's picture

An Alternative for Ubuntu

On July 5th, 2009 cantormath (not verified) says:

In terminal

Install most
:~$sudo apt-get install most

Let most format your man pages.
:~$ sudo update-alternatives --config pager

In the menu, select number corresponding to most(on mine its 5) and hit enter. Enjoy.

Gregg's picture

Less color for man pages

On July 3rd, 2009 Gregg (not verified) says:

Less is much more powerful than most.
See how to get colored man pages with less here:
http://nion.modprobe.de/blog/archives/572-less-colors-for-man-pages.html

Anonymous's picture

or...

On July 2nd, 2009 Anonymous (not verified) says:

add the following to .Xdefaults

*VT100*colorULMode: on
*VT100*colorUL: MAGENTA
*VT100*underLine: off
*VT100*colorBDMode: on
*VT100*colorBD: GREEN

Then merge
xrdb -merge .Xdefaults

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