for viewing source code). -x3: Set tabstops (the number of columns per hard tab character) to the specified number (3, in this example) (useful for viewing source code). -S: Disable line wrapping ("chop long lines"). Long lines can be seen by side-scrolling. -X: Leave file contents on screen when less exits. -?: Show help. --follow-name: Follow mode, for log files that get replaced while being viewed. Frequently used commands Examples less -M readme.txt # Read "readme.txt" less +F /var/log/mail.log # Follow mode for log file * | less # Easier file analysis less -I -p void *.c # Case insensitive search for "void" in all .c files Memory considerations The --buffers=n and --auto-buffers options control how much memory less may use to buffer inputs. This is most relevant when less is directly accessing a named file that is modified or deleted while less is still running, and when less is receiving data from a pipe and the data can not be randomly accessed or regenerated. On the other hand, unlimited buffering means that less will request as much memory as it is fed data, which could drive the system into using virtual memory and swapping a lot of data between RAM and disks (dramatically slowing system performance for most applications on the host), or even further into memory exhaustion where any application on the host requesting memory may have that request denied, or may crash when attempting to access memory that the OS promised but can't find when the application actually attempts to use it and a page-fault occurs. For this reason, some companies/organisations insist that less be used only with fixed buffering - or not at all - on production machines. See also more (command) most (Unix) pg (Unix) References External links Manual page GNU Project software Terminal pagers