Unix "wrap" filter Unix "wrap" filter shell shell

Unix "wrap" filter


GNU coreutils has a command called fmt:

$ fmt -40 -t lorem
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur   adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod   tempor incididunt ut labore et   dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim   ad minim veniam, quis nostrud   exercitation ullamco laboris   nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo   consequat. Duis aute irure dolor   in reprehenderit in voluptate velit   esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla   pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat   cupidatat non proident, sunt in   culpa qui officia deserunt mollit   anim id est laborum.

Edit: As you can see, fmt breaks lines on word boundaries within the given width. Contrast this with the hard boundary of fold. The type of indenting that fmt does may not be what you're looking for, but you can pipe it (without the -t option) through pr to get a margin-style indent:

fmt -40 lorem | pr -To 6


You might want the fold command.

$ fold -w 80 file.txt

or

$ cat file.txt | fold


You can indent with pr, if you like, eg.

$ fold -w 76 -s file.txt | pr -T --indent=4