This is more of a general unix hint, that is not really MacOS X specific.
If you have a manpage that you want to look at, that is not in $MANPATH, (Something that got installed by hand into a custom directory, for example something that was built and installed using
./configure –prefix=/opt/packagename && make install ), yet you know where it is (for example because you did run /usr/libexec/locate.updatedb as root at least once since and now can use locate), you can use nroff to render the man page into text:
stany@gilva:~[12:06 AM]$ ls -la /opt/gnu/man/man6/figlet.6
-r--r--r-- 1 root 501 21054 Sep 3 17:41 /opt/gnu/man/man6/figlet.6
stany@gilva:~[12:06 AM]$ nroff -man /opt/gnu/man/man6/figlet.6 | head -20
FIGLET(6) FIGLET(6)
NAME
FIGlet - display large characters made up of ordinary screen characters
SYNOPSIS
figlet [ -cklnoprstvxDELNRSWX ] [ -d fontdirectory ]
[ -f fontfile ] [ -m layoutmode ]
[ -w outputwidth ] [ -C controlfile ]
[ -I infocode ] [ message ]
DESCRIPTION
FIGlet prints its input using large characters (called ``FIGcharac-
ters'')made up of ordinary screen characters (called ``sub-charac-
ters''). FIGlet output is generally reminiscent of the sort of ``sig-
natures'' many people like to put at the end of e-mail and UseNet mes-
stany@gilva:~[12:06 AM]$