An efficient way to transpose a file in Bash

awk  -F'  '                                               #FS

' {

    for (i=1; i<=NF; i++)  {

        a[NR,i] = $i

    }

}

NF>p { p = NF }

END {   

    for(j=1; j<=p; j++) {

        str=a[1,j]

        for(i=2; i<=NR; i++){

            str=str" "a[i,j];                           #OFS

        }

        print str

    }

}'  file > NEW_file