convert terminal man page to pdf/export man page as pdf

I came across this command a while back.

In terminal use the command:

man -t * | open -f -a Preview

where * is what you're trying to view
(example: man -t man | open -f -a Preview) (| is the pipe character above the enter button)

This will open the page in Preview, thus allowing you to then save it as a PDF.


Ben

Not off-hand. You can always just open it in Terminal, copy and paste into an rtf formatted TextEdit doc, then select Print/Save as/PDF. Or get a copy of ManOpen

http://www.clindberg.org/projects/ManOpen.html

Use it to open the man page, then go to Print/Save as/PDF.
Francine


Francine
Schwieder

Is there a tabulation of UNIX commands somewhere? How do you even know where to begin when trying to find a command that you need? When users here present some UNIX commands as the solution to some problem, have they typically written these themselves or have they obtained them from other users? They must originate somewhere! Where does one gain insight into this whole world of UNIX?

Regards,
Steve M.

There are many resources on the internet (search for UNIX commands on goolge), plus there are many books to get started with UNIX and the different commands that can be used. There's a couple that I use but can recall the names of them off the top of my head. In this instance, the command that I had supplied was one I found on the internet a while back.

Ben

I've read several books on UNIX and the bash shell, and read the sections of several MacOSX books on UNIX. I started dabbling way way back, used Linux a bit on a rebuilt 486, installed some UNIX based stuff on pre-OS X Macs (there was Yellow Dog, and something else, whose name escapes me, I used on my 7100). Back then it was best to buy books. These days you can find anything you want to know along those lines on the internet. An excellent place to start:

http://www.osxfaq.com/Tutorials/LearningCenter/index.ws

Whenever I discover/see a useful command I add it to my "cheat sheet" along with an example and an explanation of it. I've organized my "cheat sheet" into categories that make sense to me, so that I can quickly find what I want.

A really handy helpful application for this sort of thing is Clix from Rixstep:

http://rixstep.com/4/0/clix/index.shtml

It has various lists of commands, categories and explanations. Truly great software, and it's free.
Francine


Francine
Schwieder

Actually you can do this directly, without Preview's help. For example, for the "last" command:

man -t last | pstopdf -i -o last.pdf

will create the "last.pdf" document in your Home directory.

You can open it in Preview by double clicking, or the Open command in Terminal.

If you're going to do much of this though, I'd recommend creating a separate folder to avoid cluttering your Home directory.

Ah, thanks Michael! Knew there had to be a way to do it directly, but couldn't think what it would be. I've added this command to my bashCommands cheat sheet for future reference.
Francine


Francine
Schwieder

Try apropros. It'll search the man pages for matches, and is really useful to find a command when you're not sure what the name is.

Of course, you can also try Google and all of the previous recommendations.

You can also get a full list of commands available in Terminal by hitting Shift+Esc twice, and choose Yes when it prompts to view all possible commands.

Good suggestions. Thanks to all.

Steve M.

Try apropros. It'll search the man pages for matches, and is really useful to find a command when you're not sure what the name is.

Of course, you can also try Google and all of the previous recommendations.

You can also get a full list of commands available in Terminal by hitting Shift+Esc twice, and choose Yes when it prompts to view all possible commands.

man -t rsync | open -f -a /Applications/Preview.app