v7 man page for tbl

TBL(1)							      General Commands Manual							    TBL(1)

NAME
       tbl - format tables for nroff or troff

SYNOPSIS
       tbl [ files ] ...

DESCRIPTION
       Tbl  is	a  preprocessor  for formatting tables for nroff or troff(1).  The input files are copied to the standard output, except for lines
       between .TS and .TE command lines, which are assumed to describe tables and reformatted.  Details are given in the reference manual.

       As an example, letting 	 represent a tab (which should be typed as a genuine tab) the input

	      .TS
	      c s s
	      c c s
	      c c c
	      l n n.
	      Household Population
	      Town	Households
	      	Number	Size
	      Bedminster	789	3.26
	      Bernards Twp.	3087	3.74
	      Bernardsville	2018	3.30
	      Bound Brook	3425	3.04
	      Branchburg	1644	3.49
	      Bridgewater	7897	3.81
	      Far Hills	240	3.19
	      .TE

       yields

       If no arguments are given, tbl reads the standard input, so it may be used as a filter.	When it is used with eqn or neqn the  tbl  command
       should be first, to minimize the volume of data passed through pipes.

SEE ALSO
       troff(1), eqn(1)
       M. E. Lesk, TBL.

																	    TBL(1)