fold

Fold lines to a specific width (default: 80 columns)

$ fold -w [60] [path/to/file]

$ fold -s -w [60] [path/to/file]

$ fold -b -w [60] [path/to/file]

$ fold -c -w [60] [path/to/file]

$ echo "long line of text" | fold -w [40]

fold [options] [file...]

Fold wraps each input line to fit within a specified width, writing the result to standard output. By default, it counts columns and folds at exactly 80 characters, which may split words in the middle.
The -s option improves readability by breaking lines at the rightmost space within the width limit, preserving whole words when possible. Without a file argument (or with -), fold reads from standard input.
Width counting differs between modes: columns (default) accounts for tab expansion and multibyte characters, -b counts raw bytes, and -c counts characters regardless of display width.

-w, --width width

Use specified width instead of default 80 columns

Break at spaces (word boundaries) within the width limit

Count bytes rather than columns

Count characters rather than columns

Display help and exit

Output version information and exit

Without -s, fold breaks lines exactly at the specified width, potentially splitting words. Tab characters are expanded to spaces before counting columns, which may produce unexpected results. For more sophisticated text formatting with paragraph handling, consider fmt instead.

The fold command originated in early Unix systems and was standardized in POSIX. The GNU version, written by David MacKenzie, is part of the coreutils package and includes extensions like the -c character counting option not found in all implementations.

fmt(1), pr(1), cut(1)