# Install man2html with Homebrew

Convert nroff man pages to HTML. Version 3.0.1 via Homebrew; verified from local package data.

## Install

```sh
sudo av install brew:man2html
```

Additional install commands:

### macOS

- Homebrew (100%):

```sh
brew install man2html
```

  Evidence: provider-native install command

## Package facts

- **Package key:** brew:man2html
- **Package manager:** Homebrew
- **Version:** 3.0.1
- **Source summary:** Convert nroff man pages to HTML
- **Homepage:** <https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/man2html/>
- **Generated:** 2026-08-03T00:40:33+00:00

## Executables

- man2html (alias)

## Install behavior

- Bottle: not available

## Freshness

- Page generated: 2026-08-03
- Package-manager version: 3.0.1
## Project history and usage

man2html is a Perl program that reads formatted nroff text from standard input and writes an HTML document to standard output. The official site also documents a CGI program for browsing a system's manual pages through a web browser.

### Project history

The official NonGNU page says man2html was maintained solely by Earl Hood before it became a Savannah project in May 2003. The last pre-Savannah public release was version 3.0.1 in 1997, which the project continued to make available from CPAN-era distribution locations and the Savannah download area.

After the Savannah move, the project lived in GNU Savannah's NonGNU infrastructure with CVS, mailing-list archives, and project downloads. That makes it a small but historically useful bridge between roff manual pages and early web-based documentation browsing.

### Adoption history

man2html appears in traditional Unix and Linux packaging because it solves a narrow problem with few moving parts: convert formatted manual-page output into HTML, optionally behind a CGI interface. Its package-manager role is mostly as a compatibility utility rather than a modern documentation platform.

Homebrew, Debian, Fedora, Arch, and Ubuntu package names show continuing downstream availability even though the upstream history is sparse and old.

### How it is used

The CLI reads formatted nroff from standard input and emits HTML on standard output, which makes it naturally scriptable with `man`, `nroff`, or documentation-generation jobs. The CGI component is for hypertext navigation over installed man pages.

Because it works on formatted nroff rather than owning a whole man-page database, man2html is often paired with existing manual systems rather than replacing them.

### Why package nerds care

man2html is package-nerd interesting because it preserves an older Unix documentation pattern: turn local manual pages into web pages without introducing a large documentation stack.

Its official sources are thin, so the safe history is short: Earl Hood maintenance, a 1997 pre-Savannah release, and migration to Savannah in 2003.

### Timeline

- 1997: Last pre-Savannah public release, version 3.0.1.
- 2003: man2html became a Savannah project.
- 2003: The official NonGNU page records the Savannah, CVS, and mailing-list project links.

### Related projects

- man2html sits beside man-db, mandoc, groff, nroff, and CGI manual-page browsers in the Unix documentation ecosystem.
- Its role overlaps with HTML output modes in newer tools such as mandoc, but its design is simpler and older.

### Sources

- <https://savannah.nongnu.org/cvs/?group=man2html>
- <https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/man2html>
- <https://www.nongnu.org/man2html/>
- source_facts.package-manager


## Security Notes

narrow executable package without higher-risk signals.

- **Geiger risk:** green / low
- narrow executable package without higher-risk signals


## Combined YAML source

View the package source record on GitHub. [combined/man2html.yml](https://github.com/automic-vault/db/blob/main/combined/man2html.yml)


## Sources

- Nucleus package database
- Geiger risk classifier
- curated package history
- pkgdb category and tag curation