I've noticed most of my postings here are because of syntax errors.
So I want to begin compiling a large txt file that contains all the "man <cmd>" of the commands I most have problems with. I ran a "man nawk >> nawk.txt" but it included a header/footer on each "page". Anyone know how I'd be able to retrieve a "man" but in an easier-to-read format (after redirecting it into a txt file). This way I won't run into as many syntax errors as I do now.

Why do you want to re-invent the wheel again ?

A quick google search on 'unix man page' will give you many a site which post the man pages of unix.

The first result of the google query gave me this URL.

http://www.rt.com/man/

Check it out.

It will help you.

Vino

Oh, thank you.
I just started coding shell scripts about a week and a half ago.
So I'm unaware of some of the readily available resources.

I guess -- I was worried that maybe each unix machine has its own version of the "unix manual" that is tailored to the flavor of the shells on the machine.

I also don't understand what the point of appending loads of man pages into a text file is?!

Surely scanning through a huge file for the command your interested in is far slower than just running "man mycommand" anyway??

The man page itself has nothing to do with the shell (except for the manual pages for shells, of course ). They will vary across Unix flavours, however, in both layout and content, as most commands differ slightly (or hugely) in terms of syntax and functionality across flavours.

Cheers
ZB

For what its worth, try man man for a man page on using man!

man cmd |col -b > cmd.txt

it works in my solaris platform.

You might also run catman (on solaris anyway ) Make sure you have lots of time and some space on the disk for the extra files. Then you can run apropos [keyword] and all the relevent man page subject lines will be displayed. It'll help you when you're not sure of the command. Of course if it's too generic a word, you'll get a whole lot of output

Carl