1NANO(1) General Commands Manual NANO(1)
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6 nano - Nano's ANOther editor, an enhanced free Pico clone
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10 nano [OPTIONS] [[+LINE,COLUMN] FILE]...
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14 This manual page briefly documents the nano command.
15 nano is a small, free and friendly editor which aims to replace Pico,
17 the default editor included in the non-free Pine package. Rather than
18 just copying Pico's look and feel, nano also implements some missing
19 (or disabled by default) features in Pico, such as "search and replace"
20 and "go to line and column number".
21
24 +LINE,COLUMN
25 Places cursor at line number LINE and column number COLUMN (at
26 least one of which must be specified) on startup, instead of the
27 default of line 1, column 1.
28 -? Same as -h (--help).
30 -A (--smarthome)
32 Make the Home key smarter. When Home is pressed anywhere but at
33 the very beginning of non-whitespace characters on a line, the
34 cursor will jump to that beginning (either forwards or back‐
35 wards). If the cursor is already at that position, it will jump
36 to the true beginning of the line.
37 -B (--backup)
39 When saving a file, back up the previous version of it to the
40 current filename suffixed with a ~.
41 -C dir (--backupdir=dir)
43 Set the directory where nano puts unique backup files if file
44 backups are enabled.
45 -D (--boldtext)
47 Use bold text instead of reverse video text.
48 -E (--tabstospaces)
50 Convert typed tabs to spaces.
51 -F (--multibuffer)
53 Enable multiple file buffers, if available.
54 -H (--historylog)
56 Log search and replace strings to ~/.nano_history, so they can
57 be retrieved in later sessions, if nanorc support is available.
58 -I (--ignorercfiles)
60 Don't look at SYSCONFDIR/nanorc or ~/.nanorc, if nanorc support
61 is available.
62 -K (--rebindkeypad)
64 Interpret the numeric keypad keys so that they all work prop‐
65 erly. You should only need to use this option if they don't, as
66 mouse support won't work properly with this option enabled.
67 -L (--nonewlines)
69 Don't add newlines to the ends of files.
70 -N (--noconvert)
72 Disable automatic conversion of files from DOS/Mac format.
73 -O (--morespace)
75 Use the blank line below the titlebar as extra editing space.
76 -P (--poslog)
78 Log & read location of cursor position.
79 -Q str (--quotestr=str)
81 Set the quoting string for justifying. The default is
82 "^([ \t]*[#:>\|}])+" if extended regular expression support is
83 available, or "> " otherwise. Note that \t stands for a Tab.
84 -R (--restricted)
86 Restricted mode: don't read or write to any file not specified
87 on the command line; read any nanorc files; allow suspending;
88 allow a file to be appended to, prepended to, or saved under a
89 different name if it already has one; or use backup files or
90 spell checking. Also accessible by invoking nano with any name
91 beginning with 'r' (e.g. "rnano").
92 -S (--smooth)
94 Enable smooth scrolling. Text will scroll line-by-line, instead
95 of the usual chunk-by-chunk behavior.
96 -T cols (--tabsize=cols)
98 Set the size (width) of a tab to cols columns. The value of
99 cols must be greater than 0. The default value is 8.
100 -U (--quickblank)
102 Do quick statusbar blanking. Statusbar messages will disappear
103 after 1 keystroke instead of 25. Note that -c overrides this.
104 -V (--version)
106 Show the current version number and exit.
107 -W (--wordbounds)
109 Detect word boundaries more accurately by treating punctuation
110 characters as part of a word.
111 -Y str (--syntax=str)
113 Specify a specific syntax highlighting from the nanorc to use,
114 if available.
115 -c (--const)
117 Constantly show the cursor position. Note that this overrides
118 -U.
119 -d (--rebinddelete)
121 Interpret the Delete key differently so that both Backspace and
122 Delete work properly. You should only need to use this option
123 if Backspace acts like Delete on your system.
124 -h (--help)
126 Show a summary of command line options and exit.
127 -i (--autoindent)
129 Indent new lines to the previous line's indentation. Useful
130 when editing source code.
131 -k (--cut)
133 Enable cut from cursor to end of line.
134 -l (--nofollow)
136 If the file being edited is a symbolic link, replace the link
137 with a new file instead of following it. Good for editing files
138 in /tmp, perhaps?
139 -m (--mouse)
141 Enable mouse support, if available for your system. When
142 enabled, mouse clicks can be used to place the cursor, set the
143 mark (with a double click), and execute shortcuts. The mouse
144 will work in the X Window System, and on the console when gpm is
145 running.
146 -o dir (--operatingdir=dir)
148 Set operating directory. Makes nano set up something similar to
149 a chroot.
150 -p (--preserve)
152 Preserve the XON and XOFF sequences (^Q and ^S) so they will be
153 caught by the terminal.
154 -q (--quiet)
156 Do not report errors in the nanorc file and ask them to be
157 acknowledged by pressing Enter at startup.
158 -r cols (--fill=cols)
160 Wrap lines at column cols. If this value is 0 or less, wrapping
161 will occur at the width of the screen less cols columns, allow‐
162 ing the wrap point to vary along with the width of the screen if
163 the screen is resized. The default value is -8.
164 -s prog (--speller=prog)
166 Enable alternative spell checker command.
167 -t (--tempfile)
169 Always save changed buffer without prompting. Same as Pico's -t
170 option.
171 -u (--undo)
173 Enable experimental generic-purpose undo code. By default, the
174 undo and redo shortcuts are Meta-U and Meta-E, respectively.
175 -v (--view)
177 View file (read only) mode.
178 -w (--nowrap)
180 Disable wrapping of long lines.
181 -x (--nohelp)
183 Disable help screen at bottom of editor.
184 -z (--suspend)
186 Enable suspend ability.
187 -$ (--softwrap)
189 Enable 'soft wrapping'. nano will attempt to display the entire
190 contents of a line, even if it is longer than the screen width.
191 Since '$' normally refers to a variable in the Unix shell, you
192 should specify this option last when using other options (e.g.
193 'nano -wS$') or pass it separately (e.g. 'nano -wS -$').
194 -a, -b, -e, -f, -g, -j
196 Ignored, for compatibility with Pico.
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200 nano will read initialization files in the following order:
201 SYSCONFDIR/nanorc, then ~/.nanorc. Please see nanorc(5) and the exam‐
202 ple file nanorc.sample, both of which should be provided with nano.
203
206 If no alternative spell checker command is specified on the command
207 line or in one of the nanorc files, nano will check the SPELL environ‐
208 ment variable for one.
209 In some cases nano will try to dump the buffer into an emergency file.
211 This will happen mainly if nano receives a SIGHUP or SIGTERM or runs
212 out of memory. It will write the buffer into a file named nano.save if
213 the buffer didn't have a name already, or will add a ".save" suffix to
214 the current filename. If an emergency file with that name already
215 exists in the current directory, it will add ".save" plus a number
216 (e.g. ".save.1") to the current filename in order to make it unique.
217 In multibuffer mode, nano will write all the open buffers to their
218 respective emergency files.
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222 Please send any comments or bug reports to nano@nano-editor.org.
223 The nano mailing list is available from nano-devel@gnu.org.
225 To subscribe, email to nano-devel-request@gnu.org with a subject of
227 "subscribe".
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231 http://www.nano-editor.org/
232
235 nanorc(5)
236 /usr/share/doc/nano/ (or equivalent on your system)
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239 Chris Allegretta <chrisa@asty.org>, et al (see AUTHORS and THANKS for
240 details). This manual page was originally written by Jordi Mallach
241 <jordi@gnu.org>, for the Debian system (but may be used by others).
242November 30, 2009 version 2.2.0 NANO(1)