man.font.links — Specifies font for links
The man.font.links
parameter
specifies the font for output of links (ulink
instances
and any instances of any element with an xlink:href
attribute).
The value of man.font.links
must be
either B
or I
, or empty. If
the value is empty, no font formatting is applied to links.
If you set man.endnotes.are.numbered
and/or
man.endnotes.list.enabled
to zero (disabled), then
you should probably also set an empty value for
man.font.links
. But if
man.endnotes.are.numbered
is non-zero (enabled),
you should probably keep
man.font.links
set to
B
or I
[5].
[5] The main purpose of applying a font format to links in most output formats it to indicate that the formatted text is “clickable”; given that links rendered in man pages are not “real” hyperlinks that users can click on, it might seem like there is never a good reason to have font formatting for link contents in man output.
In fact, if you suppress the
display of inline link references (by setting
man.endnotes.are.numbered
to zero), there is no
good reason to apply font formatting to links. However, if
man.endnotes.are.numbered
is non-zero, having
font formatting for links (arguably) serves a purpose: It provides
“context” information about exactly what part of the text
is being “annotated” by the link. Depending on how you
mark up your content, that context information may or may not
have value.