Add View Manpages With More Color Using Bat as a Unix TIL

unix/view-manpages-with-more-color-using-bat.md

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+# View Manpages With More Color Using Bat
+
+The default pager (program for display large text documents) for manpages is
+`less`. That is, when I run something like `man git-log`, I am starting a `less`
+process for viewing that document and I have access to all the features and
+keybindings of `less`.
+
+A comparable alternative to `less` is [`bat`](https://github.com/sharkdp/bat)
+which support manpage-specific syntax highlighting. With the `-p` flag, `bat`
+uses _plain_ styling which removes the extra formatting. With the `-l` flag I
+can set the language for syntax highlighting to `man`.
+
+```bash
+❯ MANPAGER="bat -plman" man git-log
+```
+
+That's a nice way to experiment with using `bat` as the man pager, but if I want
+it set longterm I should add that env var setting for `MANPAGER` to my shell
+config or [dotfiles](https://github.com/jbranchaud/dotfiles).
+
+While `bat` is an improvement with the color that it sprinkles in, I am going to
+stick with [neovim as my configured manpage viewer](https://www.visualmode.dev/a-better-man-page-viewer). Neovim gives me a
+similar level of color plus a lot of other really nice features that only an
+editor could provide.
+
+[source](https://bsky.app/profile/tylerhillery.com/post/3mqunqyt44c2m)