Re: questions about columns

[Markus Triska]

"sunwukung@gmail.com" <sunwukung@gmail.com> wrote:

> work but M-x set-fill-column gives me the error: set-fill-column
> requires an explicit argument but doesn't give me a chance to set
> it.  How do I?

Use C-u followed by a number to specify a column.  Just C-u as
argument means to use the current column.

> Also, is there a way from within emacs to do something like the "pr"
> command (formats text into columns of a given width and page length)?
> In other words, can emacs massage text into a newspaper-like format?

You can run pr on the buffer: C-x h (mark-whole-buffer), then M-|
(shell-command-on-region), then the command (pr) and its parameters.

All the best,
Markus Triska