# info > pod2usage

[POD2USAGE(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/POD2USAGE/1/markdown)           Perl Programmers Reference Guide           [POD2USAGE(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/POD2USAGE/1/markdown)

## NAME
       pod2usage - print usage messages from embedded pod docs in files

## SYNOPSIS
       pod2usage   [-help] [-man] [-exitexitval] [-outputoutfile] [-verbose
                   level] [-pathlist dirlist] [-formatter module] [-utf8] file

## OPTIONS AND ARGUMENTS
       -help   Print a brief help message and exit.

       -man    Print this command's manual page and exit.

       -exit exitval
               The exit status value to return.

       -output outfile
               The output file to print to. If the special names "-" or ">&1"
               or ">&STDOUT" are used then standard output is used. If ">&2"
               or ">&STDERR" is used then standard error is used.

       -verbose level
               The desired level of verbosity to use:

                   1 : print SYNOPSIS only
                   2 : print SYNOPSIS sections and any OPTIONS/ARGUMENTS sections
                   3 : print the entire manpage (similar to running pod2text)

       -pathlist dirlist
               Specifies one or more directories to search for the input file
               if it was not supplied with an absolute path. Each directory
               path in the given list should be separated by a ':' on Unix
               (';' on MSWin32 and DOS).

       -formatter module
               Which text formatter to use. Default is [Pod::Text](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Pod%3A%3AText/markdown), or for very
               old Perl versions [Pod::PlainText](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Pod%3A%3APlainText/markdown). An alternative would be e.g.
               [Pod::Text::Termcap](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Pod%3A%3AText%3A%3ATermcap/markdown).

       -utf8   This option assumes that the formatter (see above) understands
               the option "utf8". It turns on generation of utf8 output.

       file    The pathname of a file containing pod documentation to be
               output in usage message format. If omitted, standard input is
               read - but the output is then formatted with [Pod::Text](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Pod%3A%3AText/markdown) only -
               unless a specific formatter has been specified with -formatter.

## DESCRIPTION
       pod2usage will read the given input file looking for pod documentation
       and will print the corresponding usage message.  If no input file is
       specified then standard input is read.

       pod2usage invokes the pod2usage() function in the [Pod::Usage](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Pod%3A%3AUsage/markdown) module.
       Please see "pod2usage()" in [Pod::Usage](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Pod%3A%3AUsage/markdown).

## SEE ALSO
       [Pod::Usage](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Pod%3A%3AUsage/markdown), pod2text, [Pod::Text](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Pod%3A%3AText/markdown), [Pod::Text::Termcap](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Pod%3A%3AText%3A%3ATermcap/markdown), perldoc

## AUTHOR
       Please report bugs using <<http://rt.cpan.org>>.

       Brad Appleton <<bradapp@enteract.com>>

       Based on code for [pod2text(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/pod2text/1/markdown) written by Tom Christiansen
       <<tchrist@mox.perl.com>>

perl v5.34.0                      2026-06-23                      [POD2USAGE(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/POD2USAGE/1/markdown)