Simplified MAN Pages Using TLDR

If you have ever tried to use a man page you know how complicated and overwhelming they can be. For example the man page for git, man git, is 1,647 lines of plain text. 😵‍💫 The tldr pages CLI is a community effort to simplify man pages with practical examples.

man page example

$ man git

NAME
       git - the stupid content tracker

SYNOPSIS
       git [-v | --version] [-h | --help] [-C <path>] [-c <name>=<value>]
           [--exec-path[=<path>]] [--html-path] [--man-path] [--info-path]
           [-p | --paginate | -P | --no-pager] [--no-replace-objects] [--no-lazy-fetch]
           [--no-optional-locks] [--no-advice] [--bare] [--git-dir=<path>]
           [--work-tree=<path>] [--namespace=<name>] [--config-env=<name>=<envvar>]
           <command> [<args>]

DESCRIPTION
Git is a fast, scalable, distributed revision control system with an unusually rich command set that provides both high-level operations and full access to internals.
...

TLDR

There is a better way; type, tldr git, and you will see 37 lines of useful color coded examples. 😌

$ tldr git

Distributed version control system.
Some subcommands such as commit, add, branch, switch, push, etc. have their own usage documentation.
More information: https://git-scm.com/docs/git.

Create an empty Git repository:

  git init

Clone a remote Git repository from the internet:

  git clone https://example.com/repo.git
...

Installation

The github page and tldr.sh website list several ways to install tldr but the easiest way on a Mac is to use brew.

brew install tlrc

“tlrc” is not a typo. The “tldr” project on brew was abandoned and replaced by “tlrc”.

Enjoy getting getting useful command line examples instantly, no AI required! 🤖