CombineTwoTextFiles

This page was last updated on October 15, 2009.

Side By Side

• Type this command in a terminal window to have the contents displayed side by side:

paste file1 file2 > combinedfile

• Example:

Contents of file1	Contents of file2	Contents of combinedfile
1 2 3 4 5 =	a b c =	1 a 2 b 3 c 4 5 = =

Row By Row

• Type this command in a terminal window to have the contents displayed in serial (the first through the last line of the first file followed by the first through last line of the second file):

paste --serial file1 file2 > combinedfile

• Example:

Contents of file1	Contents of file2	Contents of combinedfile
1 2 3 4 5 =	a b c =	1       2       3       4       5       = a       b       c                         =

Top To Bottom

• Type this command in a terminal window to have the contents displayed from top to bottom:

cat file1 file2 > combinedfile

• Example:

Contents of file1	Contents of file2	Contents of combinedfile
1 2 3 4 5 =	a b c =	1 2 3 4 5 = a b c =

Obligatory Happy Ending

And they all lived happily ever after. The end.