Use Vim as a Pager

I wanted to be able to scroll a man page in the terminal with my mouse wheel. While looking for a setting to change I learned that Vim can be used as a pager allowing mouse support and much more. Inspired by this entry at the Vim Tips Wiki, I decided to set it up for myself, but with a few minor changes. I did all this in WSL with Ubuntu 20.04.6 and Zsh on Windows 11, but it should work as well with any Unix or Linux variant:

~/.zshrc:

export PAGER="/bin/sh -c \"unset PAGER;col -b -x | vim -R \
    -c 'set ft=man mouse=a nonumber t_te=' \
    -c 'highlight Normal ctermbg=NONE guibg=NONE' \
    -c 'map q :q<CR>' \
    -c 'map <SPACE> <C-D>' \
    -c 'map b <C-U>' \
    -c 'nmap K :Man <C-R>=expand(\\\"<cword>\\\")<CR><CR>' -\""

This is very similar to what was documented in the Vim Tips Wiki, but I've made a few changes to suit my needs...

• /bin/sh -c executes a command with the most basic shell on the system (Bash on most modern systems)
• col -b -x filters out reverse line feeds used by man to show underlined text when outputting directly to the console.
• vim -R starts Vim in read-only mode
  • I initially replaced this with nvim, but the key mapping for the q key doesn't work with Neovim.
• -c 'set ft=man mouse=a nonumber t_te='
  • -c: executes a command in Vim. This line sets a few options
  • ft=man (a.k.a. filetype=man) enables proper syntax highlighting for man pages
  • mouse=a: enables mouse support for all editor modes
  • nonumber: turns off the line numbers I usually have enabled for editing code
  • t_te=: disables clearing the screen when Vim exits
    • From this answer on the Vi and Vim Stack Exchange: vi.stackexchange.com/a/435/6330
• -c 'highlight Normal ctermbg=NONE guibg=NONE': This disables the background color that I use in the editor when editing code so that my terminal transparency is still in effect.
• The rest of the lines change some key mappings so that it works in a familiar way if you're used to less (the default pager for man pages)