NAME

col − filter reverse paper motions

SYNOPSIS

col [ −bfhp ]

SYSTEM V SYNOPSIS

/usr/5bin/col [ −bfpx ]

DESCRIPTION

col copies the standard input to the standard output and performs 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 and output resulting from use of the tbl preprocessor. 

The control characters SO (ASCII code ‘017”), and SI (016) are assumed to start and end text in an alternate character set.  The character set (primary or alternate) associated with each printing character read is remembered; on output, SO and SI characters are generated where necessary to maintain the correct treatment of each character. 

All control characters are removed from the input except space, backspace, tab, return, newline, 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.  All other non-printing characters are ignored. 

SYSTEM V DESCRIPTION

The System V version of col converts spaces to tabs by default. 

OPTIONS

−bcol assumes that the output device in use is not capable of backspacing.  In this case, if several characters are to appear in the same place, only the last one read will be taken. 

−fFine.  Although col accepts half line motions in its input, it normally does not produce them on output.  Instead, text that would appear between lines is moved to the next lower full-line boundary.  The −f option suppresses this treatment — in this case the output from col may contain forward half line feeds (ESC-9), but will still never contain either kind of reverse line motion. 

−hConvert strings of blanks to tabs to decrease the printing time. 

−pPass escape-sequences that col does not know about to the output, rather than stripping them out.  This option is highly discouraged unless you are fully aware of the position of the escape sequences within the text. 

SYSTEM V OPTIONS

The −b, −f, and −p options are described above. 

−x Suppress converting spaces to tabs. 

SEE ALSO

troff(1), tbl(1)

BUGS

col can’t back up more than 128 lines. 
At most 1600 characters, including backspaces, are allowed on a line.
Local vertical motions that would result in backing up over the first line of the document are ignored. As a result, the first line must not have any superscripts.

Sun Release 3.2  —  Last change: 29 March 1986