awk print data in fixed column

Question

I would like to print data in fixed column. I mean the column should be like in table. I used printf. Input:

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AWK:

{
for(i=1;i<=5;i++){
printf "%20s",$i
if (i==5){print "\n"}}
}

Result

          To                find         information                 use                 the



        Find           something                 you               would                like



        Both            official       documentation                  as                well

There is a lot of space on the left and below the line with columns. There are other way to show this?

Answer 1

awk -v numlines=$( wc -l t | awk '{print $1}' ) '{ if (NF>0) { for (i=1;i<=5;i++) printf("%-20s ",$i) ; if (NR != numlines) { print "" } } }' inputfile

The 'numlines=$(' portion puts the number of lines in the input file into a variable available to awk called numlines. 'NF>0' ensures blank lines are ignored. 'printf(%-20s' ensures the fields are left justified and 20 characters wide. The 'NR != numlines' prints a line feed except at the end of the file.