This piece of code does what you need except that the field width is fixed. 
use warnings;
use strict;

my @row = (
'col1:line1
col1:line2',

'col2:line1',

'col3:line1',

'col4:line1',

'col5:line1
col5:line2',

'col6:line1
col6:line2
col6:line3
col6:line4'
);

format STDOUT =
^>>>>>>>>|^>>>>>>>>|^>>>>>>>>|^>>>>>>>>|^>>>>>>>>|^>>>>>>>>|~~
@row
.

write;

[download]
However using variable field width gives "Out of memory", I do not know why. 
format STDOUT =
^*|^*|^*|^*|^*|^*|~~
@row
.

[download]

In reply to Re^7: perlform ^* variable field length by pme
in thread perlform ^* variable field length by Anonymous Monk

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