Updated: lesspipe 2.21 - less pager input file preprocessor

Cygwin lesspipe Maintainer Brian.Inglis@SystematicSW.ab.ca
Mon Dec 1 16:21:45 GMT 2025


Converts many file formats to text with coloured or enhanced display,
so their contents or useful information about their contents can be shown.
See the less(1) man page section INPUT PREPROCESSOR.
The input filter is a bash script, which also works under zsh, and is
easily extensible for new formats.
Tab completion mechanisms for archive contents are provided for bash and zsh.
Also works with git version control, mutt mail client, vim text editor.
Can handle a wide variety of file formats, even files compressed and
contained in a hierarchy of archives, enabling users to deeply inspect
archives, and display the contents of files in archives without having
to unpack them.
Converters are checked for and used if available, including Cygwin packages:
	antiword		MS Word files
	binutils		text strings in binary files or archives
	brotli			compressed files or archives
	bsdtar			archive files
	bzip2			compressed files or archives
	cabextract		MS Cabinet files
	catdoc			MS Word files
	cpio			archive files
	djvulibre		DjVu files
	ffmpeg			multimedia files
	genisoimage		ISO files or images
	ghostscript		PS files
	groff			man pages or Unix source documents
	gzip			compressed files or archives
	hdf5			HDF v5 files
	id3v2			media files
	ImageMagick		image files
	jq			JSON data files
	libiconv		character set code page conversion
	lynx			HTML files
	lz4			compressed files or archives
	lzip			compressed files or archives
	mediainfo		multimedia files
	netcdf			nc4 NetCDF files
	odt2txt			OpenDocument files
	openssl			Digital Security Certificates
	p7zip			archive files
	perl-Image-ExifTool	media files
	poppler			PDF files
	python39-pygments	program source code files
	rpm			RPM files
	source-highlight	program source code files
	texlive			TeX files
	unrtf			RTF files
	unzip			zip files
	util-linux		tabular data files
	w3m			HTML files
	wordview		MS Office files
	writerperfect		MS Office files
	wv			MS Word files
	xlsx2csv		MS Excel files
	xz			compressed files or archives
	zstd			compressed files or archives.
To use these, select them for install in the Cygwin Setup program.

For more information see the project home pages:

	https://www-zeuthen.desy.de/~friebel/unix/lesspipe.html
	https://github.com/wofr06/lesspipe

It may be enabled by running interactively:

	$ eval `/usr/bin/lesspipe.sh`

or adding to a login profile the command:

	eval $(/usr/bin/lesspipe.sh)

The following package has been upgraded in the Cygwin distribution:

- lesspipe	2.21

For changes cince the previous Cygwin release see below, or
after installation read /usr/share/doc/lesspipe/ChangeLog:

	https://github.com/wofr06/lesspipe/blob/lesspipe/ChangeLog


2025-11-24	2.21

- fix display of text format audio or video files (e.g. m3u)
- remove support for colorizing log files (slow, +F not working)
- update documentation for changed configure options and file names
- update pem recoginition with newer magic file
- remove mdcat for markdown, .lessfilter example in man page changed
- update license information
- more robust parsing in archive_color
- better support for zlib file formats using 7z (dmg files), pigz or zlib-flate
- fix: get command line parameters of less when input to less is from a pipe
- show original file if LESSOPEN starts with || and the filtered output is empty



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