Linux Blog

So, you just finished that killer script and the first thing you want to do is write that man page for it right? Not exactly? What do you mean?
Writing a man page isn’t that hard and will give your users an idea of how to use a script.

Here is a basic template for creating your own man pages:

.\" This is a comment
.\" Contact Owen@thelinuxblog.com
.TH man 1 "21 June 2009" ".1" "Man Page Example"
.SH NAME
Man \- Example Man Page
.SH SYNOPSIS
Example Man Page
.SH DESCRIPTION
This is an example of a man page.
.SH OPTIONS
No options for this man page
.SH SEE ALSO
man(1), groff(1), man.config(5)
.SH BUGS
No known bugs for this template, except you might want to replace the quotes if you copy from my blog.
.SH AUTHOR
Owen (owen@thelinuxblog.com)

When you’re done with the gruelling task of writing documentation (which your users won’t read or thank you for) just plop it the correct man section in /usr/share/man
That’s all there is to it!