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.
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)