COL(1)                               BSD                                COL(1)



NAME
     col - filter reverse line feeds

SYNOPSIS
     col [ -bfh ]

DESCRIPTION
     col reads the standard input and writes the standard output.  It performs
     the line overlays implied by reverse line feeds (ESC-7 in ASCII) and by
     forward and reverse half-line feeds (ESC-9 and ESC-8).  col is
     particularly useful for filtering multicolumn output made with the .rt
     command of nroff(1) and output resulting from using the tbl(1)
     preprocessor.

     Although col accepts half-line motions in its input, it normally does not
     emit them on output.  Instead, it moves text that would appear between
     lines to the next lower full-line boundary.

     The control characters SO (ASCII code 017), and SI (016) are assumed to
     start and end text in an alternate character set.  col remembers the
     character set (primary or alternate) associated with each printing
     character read.  On output, col generates SO and SI characters where
     necessary to maintain the correct treatment of each character.

     All control characters are removed from the input except space,
     backspace, tab, return, newline, and ESC (033) followed by one of 7, 8,
     9, SI, SO, and VT (013).  This last character is an alternate form of
     full-reverse-line feed, for compatibility with some other hardware
     conventions.  col ignores all other non-printing characters.

OPTIONS
     -b        Assume that the output device in use cannot backspace.  If
               several characters are to appear in the same place, only the
               last one read is taken.

     -f        (fine) Allow the output to contain half-line feeds (ESC-9).
               Even with this option it never contains either kind of reverse
               line motion.

     -h        Convert white space to tabs to shorten printing time.

BUGS
     col can't back up more than 128 lines.
     There can be no more than 800 characters, including backspaces, on a
     line.

SEE ALSO
     troff(1), tbl(1)