add pager functionality to parser documentation

jc/cli.py

@@ -225,9 +225,11 @@ def help_doc(options):
                 f'Compatibility:  {compatible}\n\n'\
                 f'Version {version} by {author} ({author_email})\n'
 
-            return doc_text
+            utils._safe_pager(doc_text)
+            return
 
-    return helptext()
+    utils._safe_print(helptext())
+    return
 
 
 def versiontext():
@@ -504,7 +506,7 @@ def main():
         sys.exit(0)
 
     if help_me:
-        utils._safe_print(help_doc(sys.argv))
+        help_doc(sys.argv)
         sys.exit(0)
 
     if version_info:

jc/utils.py

@@ -29,6 +29,15 @@ def _safe_print(string: str, sep=' ', end='\n', file=sys.stdout, flush=False) ->
         print(_asciify(string), sep=sep, end=end, file=file, flush=flush)
 
 
+def _safe_pager(string: str) -> None:
+    """Pager output for both UTF-8 and ASCII encoding systems"""
+    from pydoc import pager
+    try:
+        pager(string)
+    except UnicodeEncodeError:
+        pager(_asciify(string))
+
+
 def warning_message(message_lines: List[str]) -> None:
     """
     Prints warning message to `STDERR` for non-fatal issues. The first line