On Unix-like operating systems, the pr command formats a file to make it look better when printed.

This page covers the GNU/Linux version of pr.

Description

pr paginates or columnates FILE(s) for printing.

  • Description
  • Syntax
  • Examples
  • Related commands
  • Linux commands help

The -t option is implied if PAGE_LENGTH is less than or equal to 10.

If no FILE is specified, or when FILE is a dash ("-"), pr reads from standard input instead.

Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options as well:

Syntax

pr [OPTION]… [FILE]…

Options

Examples

ls -a | pr -n -h “Files in $(pwd)” > directory.txt

Fetch a listing of all files in the current directory using the ls command, and pipe the output to pr, which formats the data in a printer-friendly format with a custom header and numbered lines. The formatted pr output is written to the file directory.txt, which can then be printed.

expand — Expand tab characters to several spaces.lp — Print a file on the System V operating system.