LESSPIPE.SH(1) User Commands LESSPIPE.SH(1) (NAME) lesspipe.sh - less (SYNOPSIS) lesspipe.sh [FILE[s]]... (DESCRIPTION) lesspipe.sh less . . . lesspipe.sh less . less (gzip bzip2 compress zstd lz4 lzip xz lzma zlib brotli) . ( tar ar zip 7-zip rar jar cpio rpm deb ms-cabinet iso dmg appimage snap). . pdf dvi markdown Office (MS and OpenOffice) NetCDF matlab device tree blob html xml ( ) . . . . file iconv . file . . git vim mutt lesspipe.sh . https://github.com/wofr06/lesspipe/wiki . (FILTER ACTIVATION) less LESSOPEN . ksh (bash zsh) LESSOPEN="|lesspipe.sh %s"; export LESSOPEN less . lesspipe.sh . LESSOPEN lesspipe.sh . LESSOPEN : eval `lesspipe.sh` (bash) or lesspipe.sh | source /dev/stdin (zsh) lesspipe.sh . LESSQUIET STDIN . less . less (pipe) : cat somefile | less less LESSOPEN |- . lesspipe.sh (bug) . LESSQUIET . . . . . HTML XML Perl POD (HTML, XML AND PERL POD FILES) HTML Perl POD . . . (html pod) ( ). : less index.html:html xmq XML XML . HTML xmq . HTML . . XMQ_THEME dark . (OUTPUT COLORIZATION) . . LESS_MAXSIZE_COLOR (: 200000) . . nvimpager . bat/batcat pygmentize e2ansi- cat source-highlight vimcolor code2color . bat/batcat ansi plain less . ~/.config/bat/config BAT_STYLE BAT_THEME . (log) tspin ":log" "log" . LESSCOLORIZER . pygmentize bat/batcat : LESSCOLORIZER='pygmentize -O style=foo' # -P allowed as well LESSCOLORIZER='bat --style=foo --theme=bar' # default: theme=ansi, style=plain LESS -R less . (escape sequences) . -r . . . : bat --list-languages batcat --list-languages pygmentize -L lexers M-x -mode [TAB] within emacs source-highlight --lang-list code2color -h vimcolor -L (both for vimcolor and nvimpager) (pipe) . lesspipe.sh . ( ) :extension ( ) : command that generates C code | less - :c tar . less ( man git perldoc) lesspipe.sh . (WATCHING GROWING FILES) . F less . .log tspin less : less /var/log/syslog : .lessignore . (globbing) . : syslog */syslog *.syslog syslog syslog .syslog . (ADVANCED USAGE) lesspipe.sh . : less archive_file:contained_file less super_archive:archive_file:contained_file (:) . (=) . less LESSOPEN |- . . : cat super_archive | less - :archive:contained_file (COMPLETING MECHANISM FOR ARCHIVE CONTENTS) lesscomplete ( zsh bash) _less ( zsh) less ( bash) (tab completion) . (:) (=) . . ( configure) . lesscomplete $PATH _less zsh $fpath . less bash bash ~/.bashrc source . ~/scripts ~/.fpath ( zsh) : PATH=~/scripts:$PATH # (lesspipe.sh, less) fpath=(~/.fpath $fpath) # (_less, zsh only) zsh compinit menucomplete . : autoload compinit compinit -Uz setopt menucomplete bash bash-completion ( ) . (USER DEFINED FILTERING) (lesspipe.sh) . .lessfilter ( ) lessfilter ( $PATH ). 0 . lesspipe.sh . . .lessfilter : #!/usr/bin/env bash case $1 in *.md|*.MD|*.mkd|*.markdown|*.rst) # if the Python module rich.markdown is not found then # the exit code is nonzero and lesspipe.sh is called python3 -m rich.markdown -c $1 ;; *.html|*.htm) # call your favorite HTML beautifier, cat -b is just a boring example cat -b $1 ;; *) exit 1;; esac (AUTHORS) Wolfgang Friebel (BUGS) (issue) github . (COPYRIGHT) (C) 2005-2026 Wolfgang Friebel . . . (SEE ALSO) less(1) lesspipe.sh README . lesspipe.sh April 2026 LESSPIPE.SH(1)