A
terminal pager, or paging program, is a
computer program used to view (but not modify) the contents of a
text file moving down the file one line or one screen at a time. Some, but not all, pagers allow movement up a file. A popular
cross-platform terminal pager is
more. More can move forwards and backwards in text files but cannot move backwards in
pipes.
less is a more advanced pager that allows movement forward and backward, and contains extra functions such as search.