View manpages as PDF and optionally create them before

view-man

#!/bin/bash
# convert a manpage to PDF

echo
echo "view-man"
echo "Open a manpage as PDF"
echo

if (( $# == 0 ))
then
    echo
    echo "Usage: view-man <page-name>"
    echo "The single argument is the name of the manpage."
    echo "If no manpage with that name exists the program stops."
    echo "If a file ~/.man2pdf exists it should contain a single absolute path"
    echo "to a directory containing converted PDF files of manpages (without trailing slash)."
    echo "Otherwise the program works in the current directory."
    echo
    echo "If a PDF for the given manpage exists it is opened, otherwise"
    echo "it is first created."
    exit 1
fi
pg=$1

# Check if a manpage exists for the given argument
if man "$pg" > /dev/null 2>&1
then
    # Use common directory or current working dir
    if [ -e ~/.view-man ]
    then
	targetdir=$(cat ~/.view-man)
	if ! [ -d $targetdir ]
	then
	    echo "Content of ~/.view-man doesn't point to an existing directory! Exiting"
	    exit 1
	fi
    else
	targetdir=$(pwd)
    fi
    out="$targetdir/$pg.pdf"
    if ! [ -e $out ]
    then
	echo "Create PDF from manpage for $pg"
	man -t $pg | ps2pdf - $out
    fi
    xdg-open $out
else
    echo "No manpage for $pg found"
fi

This is a convenience utility around the possibility to convert manpages to PDF, it is inspired by TeX Live's texdoc' utility.

Usage:
view-man <program-name>, e.g. view-man pstree.

The script works either in the current directory or in a common folder where manpage PDFs are maintained.
If a file ~/.view-man is found its content is interpreted as an absolute path to the common folder.

If the argument names an existing manpage the script looks for the corresponding PDF in the target directory. If one is present it is simply opened with the user's PDF viewing application, otherwise it is first created and then opened.

Preparation:
Save the file, ideally to a directory in $PATH (e.g. ~/bin'') and make it executable. Create a directory to hold the generated PDF manpages. Create a file ~/.view-man` with the absolute path to the created directory as its only content.