LPI Linux Essentials Complete Practice Exam 2026

The command that effectively displays the contents of a text file page by page is "less." This command allows the user to view the content of a file interactively, letting them scroll through the text. With "less," you can navigate through the file using keyboard commands, such as arrow keys or page up/down, making it much more user-friendly for lengthy texts, as it doesn't overwhelm the terminal with too much information at once.

Additionally, with "less," users can search the content, jump to specific sections, and control the viewing experience more intuitively compared to other options. This versatility makes it a preferred choice for reading large files in a paginated format.

While "more" also allows for paginated viewing of text files, it is more limited than "less," as it only permits forward navigation and lacks the advanced features that "less" offers. The commands "cat" and "head" serve different purposes. "cat" concatenates and displays the entire contents of a file at once, while "head" only shows the first few lines of a file.