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
use of the tbl(1) preprocessor.

Although col accepts half line motions in its input, it normally
does not emit them on output. Instead, text that would appear
between lines is moved to the next lower full line boundary. This
treatment can be suppressed by the -f (fine) option; 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.

If the -b option is given, col 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.

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.

If the -h option is given, col converts white space to tabs to
shorten printing time.

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.