Less Command Options: Tags, Special Characters, Highlighting, Tabs, and Scrolling

(truncated) rather than wrapped. That is, the portion of a long line that does not fit in the screen width is not displayed until you press RIGHT‐ARROW. The default is to wrap long lines; that is, display the remainder on the next line. -ttag or --tag=tag The -t option, followed immediately by a TAG, will edit the file containing that tag. For this to work, tag information must be available; for example, there may be a file in the current directory called "tags", which was previously built by ctags(1) or an equivalent command. If the environment variable LESSGLOBALTAGS is set, it is taken to be the name of a command compatible with global(1), and that command is executed to find the tag. (See http://www.gnu.org/software/global/global.html). The -t option may also be specified from within less (using the - command) as a way of examining a new file. The command ":t" is equivalent to specifying -t from within less. -Ttagsfile or --tag‐file=tagsfile Specifies a tags file to be used instead of "tags". -u or --underline‐special Causes backspaces and carriage returns to be treated as printable characters; that is, they are sent to the terminal when they appear in the input. -U or --UNDERLINE‐SPECIAL Causes backspaces, tabs, carriage returns and "formatting characters" (as defined by Unicode) to be treated as control characters; that is, they are handled as specified by the -r option. By default, if neither -u nor -U is given, backspaces which appear adjacent to an underscore character are treated specially: the underlined text is displayed using the terminal’s hardware underlining capabili‐ ty. Also, backspaces which appear between two identical characters are treated specially: the overstruck text is printed using the terminal’s hardware boldface capability. Other backspaces are deleted, along with the preceding character. Carriage returns immediately followed by a newline are deleted. Other carriage returns are handled as specified by the -r option. Unicode formatting characters, such as the Byte Order Mark, are sent to the terminal. Text which is overstruck or underlined can be searched for if neither -u nor -U is in effect. -V or --version Displays the version number of less. -w or --hilite‐unread Temporarily highlights the first "new" line after a forward movement of a full page. The first "new" line is the line immediately following the line previously at the bottom of the screen. Also highlights the target line after a g or p command. The highlight is removed at the next command which causes movement. The entire line is highlighted, unless the -J option is in effect, in which case only the status column is highlighted. -W or --HILITE‐UNREAD Like -w, but temporarily highlights the first new line after any forward movement command larger than one line. -xn,... or --tabs=n,... Sets tab stops. If only one n is specified, tab stops are set at multiples of n. If multiple values separated by commas are specified, tab stops are set at those positions, and then continue with the same spacing as the last two. For example, -x9,17 will set tabs at positions 9, 17, 25, 33, etc. The default for n is 8. -X or --no‐init Disables sending the termcap initialization and deinitialization strings to the terminal. This is sometimes desirable if the deinitialization string does something unnecessary, like clearing the screen. -yn or --max‐forw‐scroll=n Specifies a maximum number of lines to scroll forward. If it is necessary to scroll forward more than n lines, the screen is repainted instead. The -c or -C option may be used to repaint from

This section details more `less` command options, covering specifying tag files (-T), handling special characters like backspaces and carriage returns (-u, -U), displaying the version number (-V), highlighting unread lines after scrolling (-w, -W), setting custom tab stops (-x), disabling terminal initialization (-X), and limiting the number of lines to scroll forward before repainting the screen (-y).