Your files stay on your Mac.
Convertessa reads .man roff source files and emits DocBook XML — the semantic markup format used by technical documentation toolchains. It maps roff macros to their DocBook equivalents, preserving section structure, synopsis blocks, and named cross-references. The result drops straight into any DocBook processor for rendering to HTML, PDF, or EPUB.
Drag one .man file or an entire folder of manual pages onto Convertessa. Conversion runs fully offline — files never leave your Mac.
Choose DocBook from the output format list. Convertessa maps each roff macro to its semantic DocBook counterpart, keeping sections, synopses, and cross-references intact.
Click Convert. Convertessa writes DocBook XML alongside your originals, ready for any DocBook-compatible toolchain.
Images, audio, video, documents, archives and eBooks — all converted natively, right on your Mac.
Pick a format you have — see everything Convertessa can turn it into.
Convert hundreds of files at once with per-type group defaults and individual overrides.
First-class support for HEIC, AVIF and WebP — encode and decode, both ways. Read JPEG XL and a dozen more modern formats too.
Drop files anywhere on the window. Native, instant, and exactly what you’d expect on a Mac.
Dial in compression, resolution and bitrate. Keep originals pristine or shrink for sharing.
Never overwrite a file by accident. Convertessa appends safe suffixes automatically.
Every job is logged locally. Re-run a previous conversion or revisit recent outputs in a click.
Bundle your converted files straight into a single ZIP, TAR or 7z — packaged and ready to share the moment a job finishes.
Right-click any file in Finder and choose Convert. A Quick Action handles it on the spot — no need to open the app first.
Shrink Convertessa to a tidy mini window that tucks into a corner — just a drop zone and a format picker for quick, one-off conversions.
No cloud. No account. No upload. Every conversion happens entirely on-device, using the power already in your Mac. What you convert is nobody’s business but yours.
Script conversions, wire them into your build, or batch a folder from the terminal. The same engine, no GUI required.
Read the full CLI documentation →Shrink Convertessa down to a small, focused window — drop, convert, done, with your recent conversions one click away.
macOS 14+ · Apple Silicon & Intel
New formats, new features, and fixes — every release, on the record.
Convertessa handles the man macro package used for standard Unix manual pages. Source files may carry any section suffix (.1–.9) or the .man extension.
Yes. Drop the folder onto Convertessa, or run convertessa *.man --to dbk in your terminal to batch-convert every Man Page (roff) file in the current directory.
Convertessa strips embedded metadata from Man Page (roff) files during conversion, producing clean DocBook XML with no residual author or toolchain comments carried over from the roff source.