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