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
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 remove reverse line feeds, and
paginate the output.