OS X: "man" output giving extra characters when redirected

Question

I am trying to do a simple output redirect in OS X (El Capitan, v10.11.3) Terminal (bash shell) and am getting a bunch of unwanted characters in the output. This does not happen on Linux.

For example, if I type man open > open.txt, I get the following:

OPEN(1)                   BSD General Commands Manual                  OPEN(1)

NNAAMMEE
     ooppeenn -- open files and directories

SSYYNNOOPPSSIISS
     ooppeenn [--ee] [--tt] [--ff] [--FF] [--WW] [--RR] [--nn] [--gg] [--hh] [--bb _b_u_n_d_l_e___i_d_e_n_t_i_f_i_e_r]
          [--aa _a_p_p_l_i_c_a_t_i_o_n] _f_i_l_e _._._. [----aarrggss _a_r_g_1 _._._.]

DDEESSCCRRIIPPTTIIOONN
     The ooppeenn command opens a file (or a directory or URL), just as if you had
     double-clicked the file's icon. If no application name is specified, the
     default application as determined via LaunchServices is used to open the
     specified files.

     If the file is in the form of a URL, the file will be opened as a URL.

     You can specify one or more file names (or pathnames), which are inter-
     preted relative to the shell or Terminal window's current working direc-
     tory. For example, the following command would open all Word files in the
     current working directory:

     open *.doc

     Opened applications inherit environment variables just as if you had
     launched the application directly through its full path.  This behavior
     was also present in Tiger.

     The options are as follows:

     --aa aapppplliiccaattiioonn
         Specifies the application to use for opening the file

     --bb bbuunnddllee__iinnddeennttiiffiieerr
         Specifies the bundle identifier for the application to use when open-
         ing the file

Answer 1

From the OS X man page for man (man man):

TIPS

    [...]

    To  get  a  plain  text  version  of a man page, without backspaces and
    underscores, try

      # man foo | col -b > foo.mantxt

Applying this to your example would look like:

man open | col -b > open.txt