NAME

       reformat - tool to simple format plain ascii texts

SYNOPSIS

       reformat [-h] [-j] [-l margin] [-p] [-w width]

DESCRIPTION

       reformat is a simple tool to reformat plain texts. reformat reads from stdin and writes to stdout.

       Available options are:

       -h  prints usage information

       -j  switch justify mode: Each line of a paragraph will have the same width (see -w option). To reach
           this, spaces (' ') will be added between words.  Default: disabled

       -l left-margin
           Sets the left margin to left-margin. The margin is produced by left-margin spaces (' '), no tabs will
           be used. Default: 0

       -p  Accept lines beginning with a whitespace as usual paragraphs, too.

       -w width
           Sets the paragraph width to width. No reformatted line will be longer than width (plus defined
           margins) then. Default: 72

LIMITATIONS

       •   reformat isn't an intelligent program. It just reads a whole paragraph into a buffer and then
           reformats it. The end of a paragraph is indicated by an empty line (may also contain spaces or tabs)
           or at a line beginning with whitespaces (if you don't use -p option).

           Lines beginning with whitespaces are lines to keep untouched. Nothing happens with them, unless you
           use -p option (as just mentioned).

       •   reformat doesn't look for hyphenation and hyphens at all. It won't make new lines when reached a
           hyphen. reformat works word-by-word.

       •   reformat doesn't detect 'small paragraphs' (paragraphs without an empty line).

       •   Check for errors! If reformat detects a word with a length greater than the specified width, it will
           abort.

       •   reformat has problems with control characters. Some text documents contain the ^L character (0x0c),
           for example.

TODO

       Planned features are:

       •   Fix some problems, see "LIMITATIONS".

       •   Add an option to declare a string that indicates "don't reformat" in the text. Would be nice on
           reformatting emails, and don't touch the quoteas ('> '-lines).

       •   Add an option (e.g. -i) to keep indenting.

EXAMPLES

       reformat < foo > bar
           Reads text from foo, reformats and writes to bar.

       reformat -l 15 -j -w 50 < foo
           Nice justified, centered text from file foo on an 80x25 terminal.

SEE ALSO

       fold(1)

AUTHOR AND COPYRIGHT

       (C) Stephan Beyer <s-beyer@gmx.net>, 2003-2004, GPL