Filtering printer motions

Best way: col:

        COL(1)                    BSD General Commands Manual                    COL(1)
        
        NAME
             col – filter reverse line feeds from input
        
        SYNOPSIS
             col [-bfhpx] [-l num]
        
             ...
        
             -b      Do not output any backspaces, printing only the
                     last character written to each column position.

I did eventually find out about this.

Robust, flexible systems permit many solutions to any problem