term% cat index.txt COL(1) General Commands Manual COL(1)
NAME
col - column alignment
SYNOPSIS
col [ -bfx ]
DESCRIPTION
Col overlays lines to expunge reverse line feeds (ESC-7) and half line
feeds (ESC-9 and ESC-8) as produced by nroff for .2C in ms(6) or man(6)
and for tbl(1). Col is a pure filter. It normally emits only full
line feeds; option -f (fine) allows half line feeds too. Option -b re‐
moves backspaces, printing just one of each pile of overstruck charac‐
ters. Col normally converts white space to tabs; option -x overrides
this feature. Other escaped characters and non-printing characters are
ignored.
EXAMPLES
tbl file | nroff -ms | col | p
Format some tables for printing on typewriters; use col to re‐
move reverse line feeds, and paginate the output.
SOURCE
/sys/src/cmd/col.c
SEE ALSO
pr(1)
BUGS
Col can't back up more than 128 lines or handle more than 800 charac‐
ters per line, and understands (013) as reverse line feed.
COL(1)