catman(1)

NAME
     catman - preformat a manual page tree

SYNOPSIS
     catman [-M directory] [-bdvn] [section ...]

DESCRIPTION
     Catman preformats the manual pages of a  manual  page  tree,  by  default
     /usr/man.   All the manual pages in the man0, man1, etc. directories that
     do not have corresponding formatted manual pages in the cat0,  cat1,  ...
     directories  are  formatted.   Manual  pages that have been updated since
     they were last formatted are reformatted.

     Preformatting can be used  to  speed  up  displaying  manual  pages  with
     man(1).   As  a compromise in formatting speed and disk space use one can
     only format those sections that are used often, like sections  0,  1,  2,
     and 3 by naming those sections on the command line.

     The whatis(5) database, created by makewhatis(1), must  be  up  to  date.
     Catman uses it for a list of manual page titles.

OPTIONS

     -M directory
          The manual page directory to preformat instead of /usr/man.

     -b   Use bsfilt - to remove backspace overstrikes that indicate  boldface
          and  underlining.  Do this if you want to view the manual pages on a
          system whose viewers are too dumb to know  what  to  do  with  those
          backspaces.

     -d   Change LF to CR LF sequences (DOS format.)

     -v   Tell what is formatted, or not formatted (up to date.)

     -n   Don't do a thing, just print the commands that would be executed.

FILES

     directory/whatis         The whatis(5) database.

SEE ALSO
     man(1), nroff(1), makewhatis(1), whatis(5).

AUTHOR
     Kees J. Bot (kjb@cs.vu.nl)