---
name: "man.conf"
section: "5"
platform: "linux"
package: "mandoc"
version: "1.14.6-5"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux", "freebsd", "openbsd", "macos"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/man.conf"
---

# man.conf(5)

configuration file for man

## NAME

**man.conf** – configuration file for man

## DESCRIPTION

This is the configuration file for the [man(1)](/man/1.md), [apropos(1)](/apropos/1.md), and [makewhatis(8)](/makewhatis/8.md) utilities. Its presence, and all directives, are optional.

This file is an ASCII text file. Leading whitespace on lines, lines starting with ‘#’, and blank lines are ignored. Words are separated by whitespace. The first word on each line is the name of a configuration directive.

The following directives are supported:

- **manpath** *path*

  Override the default search *path* for [man(1)](/man/1.md), [apropos(1)](/apropos/1.md), and [makewhatis(8)](/makewhatis/8.md). It can be used multiple times to specify multiple paths, with the order determining the manual page search order.

  Each path is a tree containing subdirectories whose names consist of the strings ‘man’ and/or ‘cat’ followed by the names of sections, usually single digits. The former are supposed to contain unformatted manual pages in [mdoc(7)](/mdoc/7.md) and/or [man(7)](/man/7.md) format; file names should end with the name of the section preceded by a dot. The latter should contain preformatted manual pages; file names should end with ‘.0’.

  Creating a [mandoc.db(5)](/mandoc.db/5.md) database with [makewhatis(8)](/makewhatis/8.md) in each directory configured with **manpath** is recommended and necessary for [apropos(1)](/apropos/1.md) to work, and also for [man(1)](/man/1.md) on operating systems like OpenBSD that install each manual page with only one file name in the file system, even if it documents multiple utilities or functions.

- **output** *option* \[*value*\]

  Configure the default value of an output option. These directives are overridden by the **-O** command line options of the same names. For details, see the [mandoc(1)](/mandoc/1.md) manual.

  | | | | |
  | --- | --- | --- | --- |
  | *option* | *value* | used by **-T** | purpose |
  |  |  |  |  |
  | **fragment** | none | **html** | print only body |
  | **includes** | string | **html** | path to header files |
  | **indent** | integer | **ascii**, **utf8** | left margin |
  | **man** | string | **html** | path for Xr links |
  | **paper** | string | **ps**, **pdf** | paper size |
  | **style** | string | **html** | CSS file |
  | **toc** | none | **html** | print table of contents |
  | **width** | integer | **ascii**, **utf8** | right margin |

## FILES

- */etc/man.conf*

  ## EXAMPLES

The following configuration file reproduces the defaults: installing it is equivalent to not having a **man.conf** file at all.

```
manpath /usr/share/man
manpath /usr/X11R6/man
manpath /usr/local/man
```

## SEE ALSO

[apropos(1)](/apropos/1.md), [man(1)](/man/1.md), [makewhatis(8)](/makewhatis/8.md)

## HISTORY

A relatively complicated **man.conf** file format first appeared in 4.3BSD-Reno. For OpenBSD 5.8, it was redesigned from scratch, aiming for simplicity.

## AUTHORS

Ingo Schwarze ⟨*schwarze@openbsd.org*⟩