EXPAND(1) User Commands EXPAND(1) NAME expand - convert tabs to spaces SYNOPSIS expand [OPTION]... [FILE]... DESCRIPTION Convert tabs in each FILE to spaces, writing to standard output. With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input. Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too. -i, --initial do not convert tabs after non blanks -t, --tabs=N have tabs N characters apart, not 8 -t, --tabs=LIST use comma separated list of tab positions. The last specified position can be prefixed with '/' to specify a tab size to use after the last explicitly specified tab stop. Also a prefix of '+' can be used to align remaining tab stops relative to the last specified tab stop instead of the first column --help display this help and exit --version output version information and exit AUTHOR Written by David MacKenzie. REPORTING BUGS GNU coreutils online help: Report any translation bugs to COPYRIGHT Copyright (C) 2024 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later . This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. SEE ALSO unexpand(1) Full documentation or available locally via: info '(coreutils) expand invocation' GNU coreutils 9.5 March 2024 EXPAND(1)