[colug-432] Nice Plain Text Columns and Avoiding NIH

[jep200404 at columbus.rr.com]

I have a plain text file with variable width fields delimited by tabs. 
What filter program(s) are good at making the columns line up in 
plain text output? It would also be nice to be able limit the 
maximum size of some fields. 

I am playing with the output of http://colug.net/~jep/gas, 
which uses http://colug.net/~jep/parsegaspriceshtml.awk.