How do I perform full text search in man pages?

Question

I'm aware about apropos/man -k, but they search in summaries, while I need to search entire man pages.

How can I do full text searches in man pages?

Answer 1

To search within the text of your manual pages, and not just their headings, use man -K. You can search for simple search strings (e.g. man -K "example text"), or use the --regex option to use regular expressions in your search. It will give you the first matching manual page; press q to close it and you will be presented with the option of reading the next match (Enter), skipping the next match (Ctrl-D), or quitting altogether (Ctrl-C).