Welcome to this course on man pages, where you'll learn the ins and outs of the built-in help and documentation system found on Mac, Unix, and Linux-based operating systems.

At the beginning of the course, you'll learn the absolute essential basics, such as how to navigate individual man pages as well as how to navigate the entire man page system.

From there, you'll learn all the conventions used in man pages. If you don't know these conventions, trying to decipher a man page can be overwhelming and the documentation will appear to be filled with random punctuation. However, every single one of those seemingly random characters has a very specific meaning, and you'll learn all of them in detail.

Next, you’ll learn about order for command line options, and when it matters. Plus, you'll learn the proper way to combine command line options and how to decipher any Linux, Mac, or Unix command you see.

Of course, you'll put what you've learned to use by looking at actual man pages and by crafting commands based on what you find in those man pages.

You'll also learn the rules for writing man pages, including what components, sections, and elements to include. You can use this as a guide if you ever need or want to write documentation for any commands or scripts that you create.

Finally, you'll learn how to get help for commands that don't have their own dedicated man pages.

In short, when you complete this course, you'll be a man page expert.

Distributed by Manning Publications

This course was created independently by Linux Training Academy and is distributed by Manning through our exclusive liveVideo platform.