Print space-separated list in columns

I have this Makefile that has a variables named "MODULES" which lists all the modules I have activated in my build. This list is separated by spaces, so it looks like this when I do `echo $(MODULES)`: ``` module1 module2 module3 module4 mod5 mod6 mod7 module8 module9 ``` What I would like to do is present this list in some columns that would be displayed at compilation time. Like this: ``` Modules activated: module1 module2 module3 module4 mod5 mod6 mod7 module8 module9 ``` Ideally, the column withs would adjust to the width of the largest module in the column (see `mod7`); and the number of columns would be adjusted according to the width of the current terminal. Now, I found some unix utilities that seem to do that, like column, but I can't make it work with my set. Do you have some trick that would allow me to do that? edit: With the answer chosen below, I finally cracked this command in my Makefile: ``` @printf '%s\n' $(MODULES) | sort | column ```