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NANO(1) General Commands Manual NANO(1)
NAME
nano - Nano's ANOther editor, inspired by Pico
SYNOPSIS
nano [options] [[+line[,column]] file]...
nano [options] [[+[crCR](/|?)string] file]...
NOTICE
Since version 4.0, nano by default:
· does not automatically hard-wrap lines that become overlong,
· includes the line below the title bar in the editing area,
· does linewise (smooth) scrolling.
If you want the old, Pico behavior back, you can use --breaklong‐
lines, --emptyline, and --jumpyscrolling (or -bej for short).
DESCRIPTION
nano is a small and friendly editor. It copies the look and feel
of Pico, but is free software, and implements several features
that Pico lacks, such as: opening multiple files, scrolling per
line, undo/redo, syntax coloring, line numbering, and soft-wrap‐
ping overlong lines.
When giving a filename on the command line, the cursor can be put
on a specific line by adding the line number with a plus sign (+)
before the filename, and even in a specific column by adding it
with a comma. (Negative numbers count from the end of the file or
line.) The cursor can be put on the first or last occurrence of a
specific string by specifying that string after +/ or +? before
the filename. The string can be made case sensitive and/or caused
to be interpreted as a regular expression by inserting c and/or r
after the + sign. These search modes can be explicitly disabled
by using the uppercase variant of those letters: C and/or R. When
the string contains spaces, it needs to be enclosed in quotes. To
give an example: to open a file at the first occurrence of the
word "Foo", one would do:
nano +c/Foo file
As a special case: if instead of a filename a dash (-) is given,
nano will read data from standard input.
EDITING
Entering text and moving around in a file is straightforward: typ‐
ing the letters and using the normal cursor movement keys. Com‐
mands are entered by using the Control (^) and the Alt or Meta
(M-) keys. Typing ^K deletes the current line and puts it in the
cutbuffer. Consecutive ^Ks will put all deleted lines together in
the cutbuffer. Any cursor movement or executing any other command
will cause the next ^K to overwrite the cutbuffer. A ^U will
paste the current contents of the cutbuffer at the current cursor
position.
When a more precise piece of text needs to be cut or copied, one
can mark its start with ^6, move the cursor to its end (the marked
text will be highlighted), and then use ^K to cut it, or M-6 to
copy it to the cutbuffer. One can also save the marked text to a
file with ^O, or spell check it with ^T.
On some terminals, text can be selected also by holding down Shift
while using the arrow keys. Holding down the Ctrl or Alt key too
will increase the stride. Any cursor movement without Shift being
held will cancel such a selection.
The two lines at the bottom of the screen show some important com‐
mands; the built-in help (^G) lists all the available ones. The
default key bindings can be changed via a nanorc file -- see
nanorc(5).
OPTIONS
-A, --smarthome
Make the Home key smarter. When Home is pressed anywhere
but at the very beginning of non-whitespace characters on a
line, the cursor will jump to that beginning (either for‐
wards or backwards). If the cursor is already at that
position, it will jump to the true beginning of the line.
-B, --backup
When saving a file, back up the previous version of it,
using the current filename suffixed with a tilde (~).
-C directory, --backupdir=directory
Make and keep not just one backup file, but make and keep a
uniquely numbered one every time a file is saved -- when
backups are enabled (-B). The uniquely numbered files are
stored in the specified directory.
-D, --boldtext
For the interface, use bold instead of reverse video. This
will be overridden by setting the options titlecolor, sta‐
tuscolor, keycolor, functioncolor, numbercolor, and/or
selectedcolor in your nanorc file. See nanorc(5).
-E, --tabstospaces
Convert typed tabs to spaces.
-F, --multibuffer
Read a file into a new buffer by default.
-G, --locking
Use vim-style file locking when editing files.
-H, --historylog
Save the last hundred search strings and replacement
strings and executed commands, so they can be easily reused
in later sessions.
-I, --ignorercfiles
Don't look at the system's nanorc nor at the user's nanorc.
-J number, --guidestripe=number
Draw a vertical stripe at the given column, to help judge
the width of the text. (The color of the stripe can be
changed with set stripecolor in your nanorc file.)
-K, --rawsequences
Interpret escape sequences directly (instead of asking
ncurses to translate them). If you need this option to get
your keyboard to work properly, please report a bug. Using
this option disables nano's mouse support.
-L, --nonewlines
Don't automatically add a newline when a text does not end
with one. (This can cause you to save non-POSIX text
files.)
-M, --trimblanks
Snip trailing whitespace from the wrapped line when auto‐
matic hard-wrapping occurs or when text is justified.
-N, --noconvert
Disable automatic conversion of files from DOS/Mac format.
-O, --morespace
Obsolete and ignored option, since the line below the title
bar is included into the editing space by default. If you
prefer to keep this line blank, use -e or --emptyline.
-P, --positionlog
For the 200 most recent files, log the last position of the
cursor, and place it at that position again upon reopening
such a file.
-Q "regex", --quotestr="regex"
Set the regular expression for matching the quoting part of
a line. The default value is "^([ \t]*([!#%:;>|}]|//))+".
(Note that \t stands for an actual Tab.) This makes it
possible to rejustify blocks of quoted text when composing
email, and to rewrap blocks of line comments when writing
source code.
-R, --restricted
Restricted mode: don't read or write to any file not speci‐
fied on the command line. This means: don't read or write
history files; don't allow suspending; don't allow spell
checking; don't allow a file to be appended to, prepended
to, or saved under a different name if it already has one;
and don't make backup files. Restricted mode can also be
activated by invoking nano with any name beginning with 'r'
(e.g. "rnano").
-S, --smooth
Obsolete and ignored option, since smooth scrolling has
become the default. If you prefer the chunk-by-chunk
scrolling behavior, use -j or --jumpyscrolling.
-T number, --tabsize=number
Set the size (width) of a tab to number columns. The value
of number must be greater than 0. The default value is 8.
-U, --quickblank
Do quick status-bar blanking: status-bar messages will dis‐
appear after 1 keystroke instead of 25. Note that option
-c (--constantshow) overrides this.
-V, --version
Show the current version number and exit.
-W, --wordbounds
Detect word boundaries differently by treating punctuation
characters as part of a word.
-X "characters", --wordchars="characters"
Specify which other characters (besides the normal alphanu‐
meric ones) should be considered as part of a word. This
overrides option -W (--wordbounds).
-Y name, --syntax=name
Specify the name of the syntax highlighting to use from
among the ones defined in the nanorc files.
-Z, --zap
Let an unmodified Backspace or Delete erase the marked
region (instead of a single character, and without affect‐
ing the cutbuffer).
-a, --atblanks
When doing soft line wrapping, wrap lines at whitespace
instead of always at the edge of the screen.
-b, --breaklonglines
Automatically hard-wrap the current line when it becomes
overlong. (This option is the opposite of -w (--nowrap) --
the last one given takes effect.)
-c, --constantshow
Constantly show the cursor position on the status bar.
Note that this overrides option -U (--quickblank).
-d, --rebinddelete
Interpret the Delete and Backspace keys differently so that
both Backspace and Delete work properly. You should only
use this option when on your system either Backspace acts
like Delete or Delete acts like Backspace.
-e, --emptyline
Do not use the line below the title bar, leaving it
entirely blank.
-f file, --rcfile=file
Read only this file for setting nano's options, instead of
reading both the system-wide and the user's nanorc files.
-g, --showcursor
Make the cursor visible in the file browser (putting it on
the highlighted item) and in the help viewer. Useful for
braille users and people with poor vision.
-h, --help
Show a summary of the available command-line options and
exit.
-i, --autoindent
Automatically indent a newly created line to the same num‐
ber of tabs and/or spaces as the previous line (or as the
next line if the previous line is the beginning of a para‐
graph).
-j, --jumpyscrolling
Scroll the buffer contents per half-screen instead of per
line.
-k, --cutfromcursor
Make the 'Cut Text' command (normally ^K) cut from the cur‐
rent cursor position to the end of the line, instead of
cutting the entire line.
-l, --linenumbers
Display line numbers to the left of the text area.
-m, --mouse
Enable mouse support, if available for your system. When
enabled, mouse clicks can be used to place the cursor, set
the mark (with a double click), and execute shortcuts. The
mouse will work in the X Window System, and on the console
when gpm is running. Text can still be selected through
dragging by holding down the Shift key.
-n, --noread
Treat any name given on the command line as a new file.
This allows nano to write to named pipes: it will start
with a blank buffer, and will write to the pipe when the
user saves the "file". This way nano can be used as an
editor in combination with for instance gpg without having
to write sensitive data to disk first.
-o directory, --operatingdir=directory
Set the operating directory. This makes nano set up some‐
thing similar to a chroot.
-p, --preserve
Preserve the XON and XOFF sequences (^Q and ^S) so they
will be caught by the terminal.
-r number, --fill=number
Set the target width for justifying and automatic hard-
wrapping at this number of columns. If the value is 0 or
less, wrapping will occur at the width of the screen minus
number columns, allowing the wrap point to vary along with
the width of the screen if the screen is resized. The
default value is -8.
-s "program [argument ...]", --speller="program [argument ...]"
Use this command to perform spell checking and correcting,
instead of using the built-in corrector that calls hunspell
or GNU spell.
-t, --tempfile
Save a changed buffer without prompting (when exiting with
^X).
-u, --unix
Save a file by default in Unix format. This overrides
nano's default behavior of saving a file in the format that
it had. (This option has no effect when you also use
--noconvert.)
-v, --view
Just view the file and disallow editing: read-only mode.
This mode allows the user to open also other files for
viewing, unless --restricted is given too.
-w, --nowrap
Do not automatically hard-wrap the current line when it
becomes overlong. This is the default. (This option is
the opposite of -b (--breaklonglines) -- the last one given
takes effect.)
-x, --nohelp
Don't show the two help lines at the bottom of the screen.
-y, --afterends
Make Ctrl+Right stop at word ends instead of beginnings.
-z, --suspendable
Allow the user to suspend the editor (with ^Z by default).
-$, --softwrap
Display lines that exceed the screen's width over multiple
screen lines. (You can make this soft-wrapping occur at
whitespace instead of rudely at the screen's edge, by using
also --atblanks.) Since '$' normally refers to a variable
in the Unix shell, you should specify this option last when
using other options (e.g. 'nano -wS$') or pass it sepa‐
rately (e.g. 'nano -wS -$').
TOGGLES
Several of the above options can be switched on and off also while
nano is running. For example, M-L toggles the hard-wrapping of
long lines, M-S toggles soft-wrapping, M-N toggles line numbers,
M-M toggles the mouse, M-I auto-indentation, and M-X the help
lines. See at the end of the ^G help text for a complete list.
FILES
When --rcfile is given, nano will read just the specified file for
setting its options and syntaxes and key bindings. Without that
option, nano will read two configuration files: first the system's
nanorc (if it exists), and then the user's nanorc (if it exists),
either ~/.nanorc or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/nano/nanorc or ~/.con‐
fig/nano/nanorc, whichever is encountered first. See nanorc(5)
for more information on the possible contents of those files.
NOTES
If no alternative spell checker command is specified on the com‐
mand line nor in one of the nanorc files, nano will check the
SPELL environment variable for one.
In some cases nano will try to dump the buffer into an emergency
file. This will happen mainly if nano receives a SIGHUP or
SIGTERM or runs out of memory. It will write the buffer into a
file named nano.save if the buffer didn't have a name already, or
will add a ".save" suffix to the current filename. If an emer‐
gency file with that name already exists in the current directory,
it will add ".save" plus a number (e.g. ".save.1") to the current
filename in order to make it unique. In multibuffer mode, nano
will write all the open buffers to their respective emergency
files.
BUGS
The recording and playback of keyboard macros works correctly only
on a terminal emulator, not on a Linux console (VT), because the
latter does not by default distinguish modified from unmodified
arrow keys.
Please report any other bugs that you encounter via:
https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=nano.
When nano crashes, it will save any modified buffers to emergency
.save files. If you are able to reproduce the crash and you want
to get a backtrace, define the environment variable NANO_NOCATCH.
HOMEPAGE
https://nano-editor.org/
SEE ALSO
nanorc(5)
/usr/share/doc/nano/ (or equivalent on your system)
May 2020 version 4.9.3 NANO(1)