.TH CATMAN 1
.SH NAME
catman \- preformat a manual page tree
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B catman
.RB [ \-M
.IR directory ]
.RB [ \-bdvn ]
.RI [ section " ...]"
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B Catman
preformats the manual pages of a manual page tree, by default
.BR /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.
.PP
Preformatting can be used to speed up displaying manual pages with
.BR 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.
.PP
The
.BR whatis (5)
database, created by
.BR makewhatis (1),
must be up to date.
.B Catman
uses it for a list of manual page titles.
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
.BI \-M " directory"
The manual page directory to preformat instead of
.BR /usr/man .
.TP
.B \-b
Use
.B 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.
.TP
.B \-d
Change LF to CR LF sequences (DOS format.)
.TP
.B \-v
Tell what is formatted, or not formatted (up to date.)
.TP
.B \-n
Don't do a thing, just print the commands that would be executed.
.SH FILES
.TP 25n
.IB directory /whatis
The
.BR whatis (5)
database.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR man (1),
.BR nroff (1),
.BR makewhatis (1),
.BR whatis (5).
.SH AUTHOR
Kees J. Bot (kjb@cs.vu.nl)