man.postnix Miscellaneous man pages of Plan 9 related material

     COL(1)                                                     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 removes backspaces,
          printing just one of each pile of overstruck characters.
          Col normally converts white space to tabs; option -x over-
          rides 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 remove 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 characters per line, and understands `VT' (013) as
          reverse line feed.

     Page 1                       Plan 9            (printed 10/28/25)