HP-UX Reference (11i v1 05/09) - 1 User Commands A-M (vol 1)

c
col(1) col(1)
tbl filename | nroff -man | col | more -s
(very similar to the usual man(1) command). This command allows vertical bars and outer boxes to be
printed for tables. The file is run through the
tbl preprocessor, and the output is then piped through
nroff, formatting the output using the -man
macros. The formatted output is then piped through col,
which sets up the vertical bars and aligns the columns in the file. The file is finally piped through the
more command, which prints the output to the screen with underlining and highlighting substituted for
italic and bold typefaces. The -s option deletes excess space from the output so that multiple blank lines
are not printed to the screen.
SEE ALSO
nroff(1), tbl(1), ul(1), man(5).
NOTES
The input format accepted by col matches the output produced by
nroff with either the -T37 or -
Tlp
options. Use -T37 (and the -f
option of col) if the ultimate disposition of the output of col is a
device that can interpret half-line motions, and
-Tlp otherwise.
BUGS
Cannot back up more than 128 lines. Cannot back up across page boundaries.
There is a maximum limit for the number of characters, including backspaces and overstrikes, on a line.
The maximum limit is at least 800 characters.
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.
WARNINGS
This command is likely to be withdrawn from X/Open standards. Applications using this command might
not be portable to other vendors’ systems.
STANDARDS CONFORMANCE
col: SVID2, SVID3, XPG2, XPG3
Section 1−−102 Hewlett-Packard Company − 2 − HP-UX 11i Version 1: September 2005