RESOLVED
Thanks to everyone for the help.  Ed Centanni's solution worked the best:
apropos . | sort > mycatalog1.txt
Derek Glidden had an alternative list approach:
dpkg -l | sort > mycatalog2.txt
Both work very well but are from different databases.
Mario
>try:
>
>apropos . > mycatalog.txt
>
>if you want the list in alphabetical order:
>
>apropos . | sort > mycatalog.txt
>
>Ed.
>
>Mario Lombardo wrote:
>
>>I'm using Debian.  Somtimes I use the "whatis" command to find out 
>>what I program does.  I understand it derives its information from 
>>the top line description of the man page of the particular command.
>>
>>I would like to peruse all of the commands in the whatis/man 
>>database in the whatis format, so I can find more neat programs. 
>>For example:
>>
>>prompt> whatis chfn
>>chfn  (1)             - change user name and information
>>
>>How can I, script or otherwise, dump all of this information into a 
>>text catalog-like file so I can print it?
>>
>>Thanks,
>>Mario
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