Content-type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Man page of FMT

FMT

Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: June 2025
Index Return to Main Contents
 

NAME

fmt - simple optimal text formatter  

SYNOPSIS

fmt [,-WIDTH/] [,OPTION/]... [,FILE/]...  

DESCRIPTION

Reformat each paragraph in the FILE(s), writing to standard output. The option -WIDTH is an abbreviated form of --width=,DIGITS/.

With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.

Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.

-c, --crown-margin
preserve indentation of first two lines
-p, --prefix=,STRING/
reformat only lines beginning with STRING, reattaching the prefix to reformatted lines
-s, --split-only
split long lines, but do not refill
-t, --tagged-paragraph
indentation of first line different from second
-u, --uniform-spacing
one space between words, two after sentences
-w, --width=,WIDTH/
maximum line width (default of 75 columns)
-g, --goal=,WIDTH/
goal width (default of 93% of width)
--help
display this help and exit
--version
output version information and exit
 

AUTHOR

Written by Ross Paterson.  

REPORTING BUGS

GNU coreutils online help: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
Report any translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/>  

SEE ALSO

Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/fmt>
or available locally via: info '(coreutils) fmt invocation'


Packaged by Debian (9.7-3)
Copyright © 2025 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

 

Index

NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
AUTHOR
REPORTING BUGS
SEE ALSO
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Time: 11:48:43 GMT, September 14, 2026