Topic summary
Man pages
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Man page.
Man pages are often referred to as an online form of software documentation, even though the man command does not require Internet access, because man pages are available from a command-line interface with the man command or from a graphical user interface with a man-page viewer, rather than only being readable in printed form. The environment variable MANPATH often specifies a list of directory paths to search for the various documentation pages. Manual pages date back to when printed documentation was the norm.