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On my system I have ImageMagick and its documentation installed:

$ apt-cache pkgnames imagemagick imagemagick imagemagick-6.q16 imagemagick-dbg imagemagick-doc imagemagick-common

I can access convert's man page, which tells me SEE ALSO ImageMagick(1) if I want to know more.

man ImageMagick says No manual entry for ImageMagick.

And finally, man -k imagemagick says:

quantize (5) - ImageMagick's color reduction algorithm.

How do I access ImageMagic's man page on my system?

Additional information

Above I was mistaken. apt-cache pkgnames listed packages are "not necessarily available to download, installable or installed" (ref. APT-CACHE(8)). So, my command did not list the installed packages.

Digging more, I ended up with

$ apt list imagemagick* Listing... Done imagemagick/xenial-updates,xenial-security,now 8:6.8.9.9-7ubuntu5.4 amd64 [installed] imagemagick-6.q16/xenial-updates,xenial-security,now 8:6.8.9.9-7ubuntu5.4 amd64 [installed,automatic] imagemagick-common/xenial-updates,xenial-updates,xenial-security,xenial-security,now 8:6.8.9.9-7ubuntu5.4 all [installed,automatic] imagemagick-dbg/xenial-updates,xenial-security 8:6.8.9.9-7ubuntu5.4 amd64 imagemagick-doc/xenial-updates,xenial-updates,xenial-security,xenial-security 8:6.8.9.9-7ubuntu5.4 all

So, apparently, imagemagick-doc was not installed. Nevertheless, this package installs the www documentation (/usr/share/doc/imagemagick-doc/www) and not the man one.

Checking the content of the imagemagick package does not give away what the name of its man page is, or at least, I am not able to figure it out.

$ dpkg -L imagemagick | grep man /usr/share/man /usr/share/man/man1 /usr/share/man/man1/stream-im6.1.gz /usr/share/man/man1/display-im6.1.gz /usr/share/man/man1/animate-im6.1.gz /usr/share/man/man1/mogrify-im6.1.gz /usr/share/man/man1/composite-im6.1.gz /usr/share/man/man1/montage-im6.1.gz /usr/share/man/man1/import-im6.1.gz /usr/share/man/man1/identify-im6.1.gz /usr/share/man/man1/conjure-im6.1.gz /usr/share/man/man1/convert-im6.1.gz /usr/share/man/man1/compare-im6.1.gz

Bug reports here

  • ImageMagick: I've opened a bug report here.

  • Debian: another bug report here.

Let's see if someting comes up.

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  • 1
    FWIW, Fedora includes /usr/share/man/man1/ImageMagick.1.gz (so man ImageMagick works as part of the main ImageMagick package. Commented Mar 6, 2017 at 19:41
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    I was just looking for this the other day, so thanks for asking! It looks like Debian lost it between 2012-12-24 and 2013-05-10 though I can't tell exactly when or why (the file referencing it was renamed then renamed back, and I'm not sure how to track the in-between filename through the git web client). Commented Mar 6, 2017 at 21:37
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    @drewbenn, it looks like it has been removed here and forgotten here, if I got this right. Shall we open a bug report to Debian packages maintainer? Commented Mar 6, 2017 at 21:57
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    Yes, it looks like a problem in Debian packaging, not upstream, so Debian BTS would be the correct place to report the bug. You could file it against Ubuntu instead, since that's where you're actually seeing it, but in this case that's probably just a roundabout way of informing the same people. Commented Mar 6, 2017 at 23:21
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    OK, I've submitted the bug report to Debian BTS. I'll add the link to the main question when I get my tracking number. Thank you for helping me out. Commented Mar 7, 2017 at 1:02

1 Answer 1

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ImageMagick used to have great man pages, but the author decided HTML was the way of the future and now the man pages are mostly just a big mishmash of irrelevant options and instructions to go the web for real documentation. The missing ImageMagick man page you mention was (if I recall correctly) just a list of the commands (convert, composite, display, identify, montage, etc.).

For that reason, I often install GraphicsMagick which retained the useful man pages when it forked from ImageMagick. (You may also wish to install graphicsmagick-imagemagick-compat).

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  • I've managed to have the missing man page recovered by Debian folk. Commented Nov 23, 2017 at 5:52
  • Good job. Is it a useful man page? If not, graphics-magick may still be useful to you. Commented Nov 23, 2017 at 5:56
  • As you said, these man pages need some love. I don't want to rely on the Internet to check the syntax of local commands, when there's a local documentation available. Commented Nov 23, 2017 at 6:01

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