If you just open a manpage like:
man cowsay
You can then type:
/AUTHOR
to find and jump to the AUTHOR line, for example. Or:
/myFunction
to find instances of myFunction in the manpage.
(If there are multiple instances, you can press n to go to the next instance)
Also, if you're in a man page, you can type h and get a summary of less commands like below. I cut them off after parts I thought were relevant to you, but there's more.
SUMMARY OF LESS COMMANDS Commands marked with * may be preceded by a number, N. Notes in parentheses indicate the behavior if N is given. h H Display this help. q :q Q :Q ZZ Exit. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- MOVING e ^E j ^N CR * Forward one line (or N lines). y ^Y k ^K ^P * Backward one line (or N lines). f ^F ^V SPACE * Forward one window (or N lines). b ^B ESC-v * Backward one window (or N lines). z * Forward one window (and set window to N). w * Backward one window (and set window to N). ESC-SPACE * Forward one window, but don't stop at end-of-file. d ^D * Forward one half-window (and set half-window to N). u ^U * Backward one half-window (and set half-window to N). ESC-) RightArrow * Left one half screen width (or N positions). ESC-( LeftArrow * Right one half screen width (or N positions). F Forward forever; like "tail -f". r ^R ^L Repaint screen. R Repaint screen, discarding buffered input. --------------------------------------------------- Default "window" is the screen height. Default "half-window" is half of the screen height. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- SEARCHING /pattern * Search forward for (N-th) matching line. ?pattern * Search backward for (N-th) matching line. n * Repeat previous search (for N-th occurrence). N * Repeat previous search in reverse direction. ESC-n * Repeat previous search, spanning files. ESC-N * Repeat previous search, reverse dir. & spanning files. ESC-u Undo (toggle) search highlighting. &pattern * Display only matching lines --------------------------------------------------- Search patterns may be modified by one or more of: ^N or ! Search for NON-matching lines. ^E or * Search multiple files (pass thru END OF FILE). ^F or @ Start search at FIRST file (for /) or last file (for ?). ^K Highlight matches, but don't move (KEEP position). ^R Don't use REGULAR EXPRESSIONS. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- JUMPING g ESC-> * Go to last line in file (or line N). p % * Go to beginning of file (or N percent into file).
If you just want to more easily read big man pages, this should work.