fmt command-and-other things?

[Hart Larry]

Well, good to see this list coming alive--and-I guess Tim's on a roll.
I converted a pdf and since there are mostly only 38 characters accross an 
average line, I understand fmt for format will alter this?  However, in reading 
the man-page, seems to be written in a style of a mathamatical equation.  Can 
some1 please explain an exact sequence to convert a file
june-issue.txt
to at least 127 columns.  Can I do this without renaming, or is that a must? 
When I was successful--and-used the same name, it says, "already exsists"
Here on shellworld, a freebsd system, somewhat different fmt from the version I 
have on my hard-drive in debian squeeze.
Now, somewhat unrelated, on my hard-drive, I would like to greatly expand 
number of lines-and-columns from my current 48lines by 127columns.  Some1 from 
our LUG says there's something unusual about my Intel hardware, as he has 
somewhere around 73lines.
Is their something I can try on the fly, without rebooting, to see if we can 
increase?
Thanks in advance on both these subjects
Hart