# phpman > man > pod2man(1)
[POD2MAN(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/POD2MAN/1/markdown) Perl Programmers Reference Guide [POD2MAN(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/POD2MAN/1/markdown)
## NAME
pod2man - Convert POD data to formatted *roff input
## SYNOPSIS
pod2man [**--center**=_string_] [**--date**=_string_] [**--errors**=_style_]
[**--fixed**=_font_] [**--fixedbold**=_font_] [**--fixeditalic**=_font_]
[**--fixedbolditalic**=_font_] [**--name**=_name_] [**--nourls**]
[**--official**] [**--release**=_version_] [**--section**=_manext_]
[**--quotes**=_quotes_] [**--lquote**=_quote_] [**--rquote**=_quote_]
[**--stderr**] [**--utf8**] [**--verbose**] [_input_ [_output_] ...]
pod2man **--help**
## DESCRIPTION
**pod2man** is a front-end for [Pod::Man](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Pod%3A%3AMan/markdown), using it to generate *roff input from POD source. The
resulting *roff code is suitable for display on a terminal using [**nroff**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/nroff/1/markdown), normally via
[**man**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/man/1/markdown), or printing using [**troff**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/troff/1/markdown).
_input_ is the file to read for POD source (the POD can be embedded in code). If _input_ isn't
given, it defaults to "STDIN". _output_, if given, is the file to which to write the formatted
output. If _output_ isn't given, the formatted output is written to "STDOUT". Several POD
files can be processed in the same **pod2man** invocation (saving module load and compile times)
by providing multiple pairs of _input_ and _output_ files on the command line.
**--section**, **--release**, **--center**, **--date**, and **--official** can be used to set the headers and
footers to use; if not given, [Pod::Man](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Pod%3A%3AMan/markdown) will assume various defaults. See below or [Pod::Man](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Pod%3A%3AMan/markdown)
for details.
**pod2man** assumes that your *roff formatters have a fixed-width font named "CW". If yours is
called something else (like "CR"), use **--fixed** to specify it. This generally only matters
for troff output for printing. Similarly, you can set the fonts used for bold, italic, and
bold italic fixed-width output.
Besides the obvious pod conversions, [Pod::Man](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Pod%3A%3AMan/markdown), and therefore pod2man also takes care of
formatting **func()**, [func(n)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/func/n/markdown), and simple variable references like $foo or @bar so you don't
have to use code escapes for them; complex expressions like $fred{'stuff'} will still need to
be escaped, though. It also translates dashes that aren't used as hyphens into en dashes,
makes long dashes--like this--into proper em dashes, fixes "paired quotes," and takes care of
several other troff-specific tweaks. See [Pod::Man](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Pod%3A%3AMan/markdown) for complete information.
## OPTIONS
### -c --center
Sets the centered page header for the ".TH" macro to _string_. The default is "User
Contributed Perl Documentation", but also see **--official** below.
### -d --date
Set the left-hand footer string for the ".TH" macro to _string_. By default, the
modification date of the input file will be used, or the current date if input comes from
"STDIN", and will be based on UTC (so that the output will be reproducible regardless of
local time zone).
**--errors**=_style_
Set the error handling style. "die" says to throw an exception on any POD formatting
error. "stderr" says to report errors on standard error, but not to throw an exception.
"pod" says to include a POD ERRORS section in the resulting documentation summarizing the
errors. "none" ignores POD errors entirely, as much as possible.
The default is "die".
**--fixed**=_font_
The fixed-width font to use for verbatim text and code. Defaults to "CW". Some systems
may want "CR" instead. Only matters for [**troff**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/troff/1/markdown) output.
**--fixedbold**=_font_
Bold version of the fixed-width font. Defaults to "CB". Only matters for [**troff**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/troff/1/markdown)
output.
**--fixeditalic**=_font_
Italic version of the fixed-width font (actually, something of a misnomer, since most
fixed-width fonts only have an oblique version, not an italic version). Defaults to
"CI". Only matters for [**troff**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/troff/1/markdown) output.
**--fixedbolditalic**=_font_
Bold italic (probably actually oblique) version of the fixed-width font. [Pod::Man](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Pod%3A%3AMan/markdown)
doesn't assume you have this, and defaults to "CB". Some systems (such as Solaris) have
this font available as "CX". Only matters for [**troff**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/troff/1/markdown) output.
### -h --help
Print out usage information.
### -l --lax
No longer used. **pod2man** used to check its input for validity as a manual page, but this
should now be done by [**podchecker**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/podchecker/1/markdown) instead. Accepted for backward compatibility; this
option no longer does anything.
**--lquote**=_quote_
**--rquote**=_quote_
Sets the quote marks used to surround C<> text. **--lquote** sets the left quote mark and
**--rquote** sets the right quote mark. Either may also be set to the special value "none",
in which case no quote mark is added on that side of C<> text (but the font is still
changed for troff output).
Also see the **--quotes** option, which can be used to set both quotes at once. If both
**--quotes** and one of the other options is set, **--lquote** or **--rquote** overrides **--quotes**.
### -n --name
Set the name of the manual page for the ".TH" macro to _name_. Without this option, the
manual name is set to the uppercased base name of the file being converted unless the
manual section is 3, in which case the path is parsed to see if it is a Perl module path.
If it is, a path like ".../lib/Pod/Man.pm" is converted into a name like "[Pod::Man](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Pod%3A%3AMan/markdown)".
This option, if given, overrides any automatic determination of the name.
Although one does not have to follow this convention, be aware that the convention for
UNIX man pages for commands is for the man page title to be in all-uppercase, even if the
command isn't.
This option is probably not useful when converting multiple POD files at once.
When converting POD source from standard input, the name will be set to "STDIN" if this
option is not provided. Providing this option is strongly recommended to set a
meaningful manual page name.
### --nourls
Normally, L<> formatting codes with a URL but anchor text are formatted to show both the
anchor text and the URL. In other words:
L>
is formatted as:
foo <>
This flag, if given, suppresses the URL when anchor text is given, so this example would
be formatted as just "foo". This can produce less cluttered output in cases where the
URLs are not particularly important.
### -o --official
Set the default header to indicate that this page is part of the standard Perl release,
if **--center** is not also given.
### -q --quotes
Sets the quote marks used to surround C<> text to _quotes_. If _quotes_ is a single
character, it is used as both the left and right quote. Otherwise, it is split in half,
and the first half of the string is used as the left quote and the second is used as the
right quote.
_quotes_ may also be set to the special value "none", in which case no quote marks are
added around C<> text (but the font is still changed for troff output).
Also see the **--lquote** and **--rquote** options, which can be used to set the left and right
quotes independently. If both **--quotes** and one of the other options is set, **--lquote** or
**--rquote** overrides **--quotes**.
### -r --release
Set the centered footer for the ".TH" macro to _version_. By default, this is set to the
version of Perl you run **pod2man** under. Setting this to the empty string will cause some
*roff implementations to use the system default value.
Note that some system "an" macro sets assume that the centered footer will be a
modification date and will prepend something like "Last modified: ". If this is the case
for your target system, you may want to set **--release** to the last modified date and
**--date** to the version number.
### -s --section
Set the section for the ".TH" macro. The standard section numbering convention is to use
1 for user commands, 2 for system calls, 3 for functions, 4 for devices, 5 for file
formats, 6 for games, 7 for miscellaneous information, and 8 for administrator commands.
There is a lot of variation here, however; some systems (like Solaris) use 4 for file
formats, 5 for miscellaneous information, and 7 for devices. Still others use 1m instead
of 8, or some mix of both. About the only section numbers that are reliably consistent
are 1, 2, and 3.
By default, section 1 will be used unless the file ends in ".pm", in which case section 3
will be selected.
### --stderr
By default, **pod2man** dies if any errors are detected in the POD input. If **--stderr** is
given and no **--errors** flag is present, errors are sent to standard error, but **pod2man**
does not abort. This is equivalent to "--errors=stderr" and is supported for backward
compatibility.
### -u --utf8
By default, **pod2man** produces the most conservative possible *roff output to try to ensure
that it will work with as many different *roff implementations as possible. Many *roff
implementations cannot handle non-ASCII characters, so this means all non-ASCII
characters are converted either to a *roff escape sequence that tries to create a
properly accented character (at least for troff output) or to "X".
This option says to instead output literal UTF-8 characters. If your *roff
implementation can handle it, this is the best output format to use and avoids corruption
of documents containing non-ASCII characters. However, be warned that *roff source with
literal UTF-8 characters is not supported by many implementations and may even result in
segfaults and other bad behavior.
Be aware that, when using this option, the input encoding of your POD source should be
properly declared unless it's US-ASCII. [Pod::Simple](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Pod%3A%3ASimple/markdown) will attempt to guess the encoding
and may be successful if it's Latin-1 or UTF-8, but it will warn, which by default
results in a **pod2man** failure. Use the "=encoding" command to declare the encoding. See
[**perlpod**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/perlpod/1/markdown) for more information.
### -v --verbose
Print out the name of each output file as it is being generated.
## EXIT STATUS
As long as all documents processed result in some output, even if that output includes errata
(a "POD ERRORS" section generated with "--errors=pod"), **pod2man** will exit with status 0. If
any of the documents being processed do not result in an output document, **pod2man** will exit
with status 1. If there are syntax errors in a POD document being processed and the error
handling style is set to the default of "die", **pod2man** will abort immediately with exit
status 255.
## DIAGNOSTICS
If **pod2man** fails with errors, see [Pod::Man](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Pod%3A%3AMan/markdown) and [Pod::Simple](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Pod%3A%3ASimple/markdown) for information about what those
errors might mean.
## EXAMPLES
pod2man program > program.1
pod2man SomeModule.pm /usr/perl/man/man3/SomeModule.3
pod2man --section=7 note.pod > note.7
If you would like to print out a lot of man page continuously, you probably want to set the C
and D registers to set contiguous page numbering and even/odd paging, at least on some
versions of [**man**(7)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/man/7/markdown).
troff -man -rC1 -rD1 perl.1 perldata.1 perlsyn.1 ...
To get index entries on "STDERR", turn on the F register, as in:
troff -man -rF1 perl.1
The indexing merely outputs messages via ".tm" for each major page, section, subsection,
item, and any "X<>" directives. See [Pod::Man](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Pod%3A%3AMan/markdown) for more details.
## BUGS
Lots of this documentation is duplicated from [Pod::Man](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Pod%3A%3AMan/markdown).
## AUTHOR
Russ Allbery <>, based _very_ heavily on the original **pod2man** by Larry Wall and Tom
Christiansen.
## COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
Copyright 1999-2001, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012-2019 Russ Allbery <>
This program is free software; you may redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms
as Perl itself.
## SEE ALSO
[Pod::Man](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Pod%3A%3AMan/markdown), [Pod::Simple](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Pod%3A%3ASimple/markdown), [**man**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/man/1/markdown), [**nroff**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/nroff/1/markdown), [**perlpod**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/perlpod/1/markdown), [**podchecker**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/podchecker/1/markdown), [**perlpodstyle**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/perlpodstyle/1/markdown),
[**troff**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/troff/1/markdown), [**man**(7)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/man/7/markdown)
The man page documenting the an macro set may be [**man**(5)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/man/5/markdown) instead of [**man**(7)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/man/7/markdown) on your system.
The current version of this script is always available from its web site at
<>. It is also part of the Perl core
distribution as of 5.6.0.
perl v5.34.0 2025-07-25 [POD2MAN(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/POD2MAN/1/markdown)