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#409 man command usages, tips and tricks [Fedora]
Closed: published by rlengland. Opened by rlengland.

Closed: published
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Article Summary:

A brief explanation for man command and its usages.

Article Description:

A briefing for:
– what is man command ?
– How to use man effectively.
– How to create and update man database using mandb
– What are man sections ?
– How to export man pages.
– Examples:

Metadata Update from @rlengland:
- Issue assigned to abdulrahman--mubarak

@abdulrahman--mubarak Please use comments on this ticket to communicate with the editors about this article. Thanks.

Metadata Update from @rlengland:
- Custom field preview-link adjusted to https://fedoramagazine.org/?p=42484&preview=true

man -t 5 dnf.conf creates a PostScript file, not a PDF file. You should name the output file from that command with a .ps file extension.

Alternatively, if you really want to output a PDF file, use something like man -Tpdf 5 dnf.conf > dnf.conf.pdf instead. You will need the groff-perl package installed for the latter command to work. You can try opening the file with Firefox to confirm that it is a valid PDF file (e.g. Firefox dnf.conf.pdf).

FYI 🙂,
gb
Edited by glb

Metadata Update from @rlengland:
- Custom field editor adjusted to rlengland
- Custom field image-editor adjusted to rlengland

@abdulrahman--mubarak I have done a review/edit pass on your document did some expansion on the wording and a bit on the content.

This would be a good time for you to review my changes to make certain they meet with your approval.

I will be working on a featured image for the article so if you have ideas about that, please let us know. Otherwise I will pull something together.

Thank you.

man -t 5 dnf.conf creates a PostScript file, not a PDF file. You should name the output file from that command with a .ps file extension.

Alternatively, if you really want to output a PDF file, use something like man -Tpdf 5 dnf.conf > dnf.conf.pdf instead. You will need the groff-perl package installed for the latter command to work. You can try opening the file with Firefox to confirm that it is a valid PDF file (e.g. Firefox dnf.conf.pdf).

FYI 🙂,
gb

Good catch @glb , I obviously have too many extra packages loaded on my machine doing "automatic" conversions for me. Glad you were looking.
abdulrahman--mubarak commented

@abdulrahman--mubarak I have done a review/edit pass on your document did some expansion on the wording and a bit on the content.

This would be a good time for you to review my changes to make certain they meet with your approval.

I will be working on a featured image for the article so if you have ideas about that, please let us know. Otherwise I will pull something together.

Thank you.

I reviewed the changes, and there are meeting with my approval.

I am still learning the rope, so I will leave the featured image to you.

I am looking forward to your guidance.

Thank you.

Metadata Update from @rlengland:
- Custom field publish adjusted to 2025-08-11
- Issue untagged with: needs-image

@abdulrahman--mubarak Your article is scheduled to be published at 08:00 UTC on 11 August.

Thank you for contributing.

Issue status updated to: Closed (was: Open)
Issue close_status updated to: published
Metadata

article

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2025-08-11
rlengland
rlengland
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