fmt(1)

     NAME
          fmt - simple optimal text formatter

     SYNOPSIS
          fmt [-cstu] [-width] [-w width] [-p prefix] [--crown-margin]
          [--split-only] [--tagged-paragraph] [--uniform-spacing]
          [--width=width] [--prefix=prefix] [--help] [--version] [file
          ...]

     DESCRIPTION
          This documentation is no longer being maintained and may be
          inaccurate or incomplete.  The Texinfo documentation is now
          the authoritative source.

          This manual page documents the GNU version of fmt.  fmt is a
          simple text formatter that fills and joins lines to produce
          output lines of (up to) the specified width (default 75).
          However fmt uses a best-fit line breaking algorithm, by a
          simple version of Breaking Paragraphs into Lines, Donald E.
          Knuth and Michael F. Plass, Software-Practice and Experience
          11 (1981) 1119-1184.

          fmt concatenates the files listed as arguments.  If none are
          given, fmt formats text from the standard input.

          Blank lines are preserved in the output, as is the spacing
          between words (unless -u is used).  In contrast to BSD fmt,
          tabs are expanded on input and re-introduced on output.

          Indentation is preserved in the output, and input lines with
          differing indentation are not joined (unless -c or -t is
          used).  Note that although the BSD fmt manual also states
          this, the BSD version does in fact join following lines with
          less indentation.

          fmt prefers breaking lines at the end of a sentence, and
          tries to avoid line breaks after the first word of a
          sentence or before the last word of a sentence.  A sentence
          break is defined as either the end of a paragraph or a word
          ending in [.?!], followed by two spaces or end of line,
          ignoring any intervening parentheses or quotes.

        OPTIONS
          -c, --crown-margin
               Crown margin mode.  Preserve the indentation of the
               first two lines within a paragraph, and align the left
               margin of each subsequent line with that of the second
               line.

          -t, --tagged-paragraph
               Tagged paragraph mode:  just like crown mode, except
               that the indentation of the first line of a paragraph
               must be different from the indentation of the second.
               Otherwise the first line is treated as a one-line
               paragraph.

          -s, --split-only
               Split lines only.  Do not join short lines to form
               longer ones.  This prevents sample lines of code, and
               other such formatted text, from being unduly combined.

          -u, --uniform-spacing
               Uniform spacing.  Reduce spacing between words to one
               space, except at the end of a sentence (two spaces).

          -width, -w width, --width=width
               Fill output lines to up to width columns (default 75).
               fmt prefers to make lines about 7% shorter, to give it
               room to balance line lengths.

          -p, --prefix=prefix
               Only lines beginning with the prefix (possibly preceded
               by white space) are re-arranged; the prefix (with any
               preceding white space) is stripped for the formatting
               and re-attached to each formatted output line.  One use
               is to format certain kinds of program comments, while
               leaving the code unchanged.

          --help
               Print a usage message and exit with a status code
               indicating success.

          --version
               Print version information on standard output then exit.