Manual: fmt

FMT(1)						   General Commands Manual					      FMT(1)

NAME
       fmt - Reformat paragraphs from input (or standard input) to stdout.

SYNOPSIS
       fmt  [-c|--crown-margin]	 [-t|--tagged-paragraph]  [-m|--preserve-headers]  [-s|--split-only]  [-u|--uniform-spacing]
       [-p|--prefix] [-P|--skip-prefix] [-x|--exact-prefix] [-X|--exact-skip-prefix] [-w|--width]  [-g|--goal]	[-q|--quick]
       [-T|--tab-width] [-h|--help] [-V|--version] [FILES]

DESCRIPTION
       Reformat paragraphs from input (or standard input) to stdout.

OPTIONS
       -c, --crown-margin
	      First and second line of paragraph may have different indentations, in which case the first line's indentation
	      is preserved, and each subsequent line's indentation matches the second line.

       -t, --tagged-paragraph
	      Like  -c,	 except	 that the first and second line of a paragraph *must* have different indentation or they are
	      treated as separate paragraphs.

       -m, --preserve-headers
	      Attempt to detect and preserve mail headers in the input. Be careful when combining this flag with -p.

       -s, --split-only
	      Split lines only, do not reflow.

       -u, --uniform-spacing
	      Insert exactly one space between words, and two between sentences. Sentence breaks in the input  are  detected
	      as [?!.] followed by two spaces or a newline; other punctuation is not interpreted as a sentence break.

       -p, --prefix 
	      Reformat	only  lines  beginning with PREFIX, reattaching PREFIX to reformatted lines. Unless -x is specified,
	      leading whitespace will be ignored when matching PREFIX.

       -P, --skip-prefix 
	      Do not reformat lines beginning with PSKIP. Unless -X is specified, leading whitespace will  be  ignored	when
	      matching PSKIP

       -x, --exact-prefix
	      PREFIX must match at the beginning of the line with no preceding whitespace.

       -X, --exact-skip-prefix
	      PSKIP must match at the beginning of the line with no preceding whitespace.

       -w, --width 
	      Fill  output lines up to a maximum of WIDTH columns, default 75. This can be specified as a negative number in
	      the first argument.

       -g, --goal 
	      Goal width, default of 93% of WIDTH. Must be less than or equal to WIDTH.

       -q, --quick
	      Break lines more quickly at the expense of a potentially more ragged appearance.

       -T, --tab-width 
	      Treat tabs as TABWIDTH spaces for determining line length, default 8. Note that this is used only	 for  calcu‐
	      lating line lengths; tabs are preserved in the output.

       -h, --help
	      Print help

       -V, --version
	      Print version

       [FILES]

VERSION
       v(uutils coreutils) 0.8.0

							 2026-04-16						      FMT(1)