$ awk 'length > 72' {HOW TO PRINT THE LINEs IN PCS?} msgie I want it to add \n after 72 chars and continue, so initially you may need to remove all single \ns and the add them. It may be easier be easier with other tool but let's give a try to awk.[Update] Williamson provided the right answer but some help needed to read it. I break the problem into parts with simpler examples, below. Why does the code below print \t in both cases, gsub should substitute things? x is a dummy-file, some odd 0 at the end.Attacking the line line = $0 \n more = getline \n gsub(\t, ) in Williamson's reply, line apparently gets whole stdout while more gets popped value of $0, right?Code to part 1$ gawk '{ hallo=tjena\t tjena2; gsub(\t, ); }; END {print hallo; gsub(\t, ); hallo=hallo gsub(\t,); print hallo }' xtjena  tjena2tjena  tjena20
AWK: wrap lines to 72 characters
awk;text formatting
Here is an AWK script that wraps long lines and re-wraps the remainders as well as short lines:awk -v WIDTH=72 '{    gsub(\t, )    $0 = line $0    while (length <= WIDTH) {        line = $0        more = getline        gsub(\t, )        if (more)            $0 = line   $0        else            $0 = line            break    }    while (length >= WIDTH) {        print substr($0,1,WIDTH)        $0 = substr($0,WIDTH+1)    }    line = $0  }END {    print}'There is a Perl script available on CPAN which does a very nice job of reformatting text. It's called paradj (individual files). In order to do hyphenation, you will also need TeX::Hyphen.SWITCHES--------The available switches are:--width=n (or -w=n or -w n)    Line width is n chars long--left (or -l)    Output is left-justified (default)--right (or -r)    Output is right-justified--centered (or -c)    Output is centered--both (or -b)    Output is both left- and right-justified--indent=n (or -i=n or -i n)    Leave n spaces for initial indention (defaults to 0)--newline (or -n)    Insert blank lines between paragraphs--hyphenate (or -h)    Hyphenate word that doesn't fit on a lineHere is a diff of some changes I made to support a left-margin option:12c12< my ($indent, $newline);---> my ($indent, $margin, $newline);15a16>   margin:i => \$margin,21a23> $margin = 0 if (!$margin);149a152>     print   x $margin;187a191,193>   print --margin=n (or -m=n or -m n)  Add a left margin of n ;>   print spaces\n;>   print                                 (defaults to 0)\n;