1NANO(1) General Commands Manual NANO(1)
2
6 nano - Nano's ANOther editor, inspired by Pico
7
10 nano [options] [[+line[,column]] file]...
11 nano [options] [[+[crCR](/|?)string] file]...
13
16 Since version 4.0, nano by default:
17 · does not automatically hard-wrap lines that become overlong,
19 · includes the line below the title bar in the editing area,
20 · does linewise (smooth) scrolling.
21 If you want the old, Pico behavior back, you can use --breaklonglines,
23 --emptyline, and --jumpyscrolling (or -bej for short).
24
27 nano is a small and friendly editor. It copies the look and feel of
28 Pico, but is free software, and implements several features that Pico
29 lacks, such as: opening multiple files, scrolling per line, undo/redo,
30 syntax coloring, line numbering, and soft-wrapping overlong lines.
31 When giving a filename on the command line, the cursor can be put on a
33 specific line by adding the line number with a plus sign (+) before the
34 filename, and even in a specific column by adding it with a comma.
35 (Negative numbers count from the end of the file or line.) The cursor
36 can be put on the first or last occurrence of a specific string by
37 specifying that string after +/ or +? before the filename. The string
38 can be made case sensitive and/or caused to be interpreted as a regular
39 expression by inserting c and/or r after the + sign. These search
40 modes can be explicitly disabled by using the uppercase variant of
41 those letters: C and/or R. When the string contains spaces, it needs
42 to be enclosed in quotes. To give an example: to open a file at the
43 first occurrence of the word "Foo", one would do:
44 nano +c/Foo file
46 As a special case: if instead of a filename a dash (-) is given, nano
48 will read data from standard input.
49
52 Entering text and moving around in a file is straightforward: typing
53 the letters and using the normal cursor movement keys. Commands are
54 entered by using the Control (^) and the Alt or Meta (M-) keys. Typing
55 ^K deletes the current line and puts it in the cutbuffer. Consecutive
56 ^Ks will put all deleted lines together in the cutbuffer. Any cursor
57 movement or executing any other command will cause the next ^K to over‐
58 write the cutbuffer. A ^U will paste the current contents of the cut‐
59 buffer at the current cursor position.
60 When a more precise piece of text needs to be cut or copied, one can
62 mark its start with ^6, move the cursor to its end (the marked text
63 will be highlighted), and then use ^K to cut it, or M-6 to copy it to
64 the cutbuffer. One can also save the marked text to a file with ^O, or
65 spell check it with ^T.
66 On some terminals, text can be selected also by holding down Shift
68 while using the arrow keys. Holding down the Ctrl or Alt key too will
69 increase the stride. Any cursor movement without Shift being held will
70 cancel such a selection.
71 The two lines at the bottom of the screen show some important commands;
73 the built-in help (^G) lists all the available ones. The default key
74 bindings can be changed via a nanorc file -- see nanorc(5).
75
78 -A, --smarthome
79 Make the Home key smarter. When Home is pressed anywhere but at
80 the very beginning of non-whitespace characters on a line, the
81 cursor will jump to that beginning (either forwards or back‐
82 wards). If the cursor is already at that position, it will jump
83 to the true beginning of the line.
84 -B, --backup
86 When saving a file, back up the previous version of it, using
87 the current filename suffixed with a tilde (~).
88 -C directory, --backupdir=directory
90 Make and keep not just one backup file, but make and keep a
91 uniquely numbered one every time a file is saved -- when backups
92 are enabled (-B). The uniquely numbered files are stored in the
93 specified directory.
94 -D, --boldtext
96 For the interface, use bold instead of reverse video. This will
97 be overridden by setting the options titlecolor, statuscolor,
98 keycolor, functioncolor, numbercolor, and/or selectedcolor in
99 your nanorc file. See nanorc(5).
100 -E, --tabstospaces
102 Convert typed tabs to spaces.
103 -F, --multibuffer
105 Read a file into a new buffer by default.
106 -G, --locking
108 Use vim-style file locking when editing files.
109 -H, --historylog
111 Save the last hundred search strings and replacement strings and
112 executed commands, so they can be easily reused in later ses‐
113 sions.
114 -I, --ignorercfiles
116 Don't look at the system's nanorc nor at the user's nanorc.
117 -J number, --guidestripe=number
119 Draw a vertical stripe at the given column, to help judge the
120 width of the text. (The color of the stripe can be changed with
121 set stripecolor in your nanorc file.)
122 -K, --rawsequences
124 Interpret escape sequences directly (instead of asking ncurses
125 to translate them). If you need this option to get your key‐
126 board to work properly, please report a bug. Using this option
127 disables nano's mouse support.
128 -L, --nonewlines
130 Don't automatically add a newline when a text does not end with
131 one. (This can cause you to save non-POSIX text files.)
132 -M, --trimblanks
134 Snip trailing whitespace from the wrapped line when automatic
135 hard-wrapping occurs or when text is justified.
136 -N, --noconvert
138 Disable automatic conversion of files from DOS/Mac format.
139 -O, --morespace
141 Obsolete and ignored option, since the line below the title bar
142 is included into the editing space by default. If you prefer to
143 keep this line blank, use -e or --emptyline.
144 -P, --positionlog
146 For the 200 most recent files, log the last position of the cur‐
147 sor, and place it at that position again upon reopening such a
148 file.
149 -Q "regex", --quotestr="regex"
151 Set the regular expression for matching the quoting part of a
152 line. The default value is "^([ \t]*([!#%:;>|}]|//))+". (Note
153 that \t stands for an actual Tab.) This makes it possible to
154 rejustify blocks of quoted text when composing email, and to re‐
155 wrap blocks of line comments when writing source code.
156 -R, --restricted
158 Restricted mode: don't read or write to any file not specified
159 on the command line. This means: don't read or write history
160 files; don't allow suspending; don't allow spell checking; don't
161 allow a file to be appended to, prepended to, or saved under a
162 different name if it already has one; and don't make backup
163 files. Restricted mode can also be activated by invoking nano
164 with any name beginning with 'r' (e.g. "rnano").
165 -S, --smooth
167 Obsolete and ignored option, since smooth scrolling has become
168 the default. If you prefer the chunk-by-chunk scrolling behav‐
169 ior, use -j or --jumpyscrolling.
170 -T number, --tabsize=number
172 Set the size (width) of a tab to number columns. The value of
173 number must be greater than 0. The default value is 8.
174 -U, --quickblank
176 Do quick status-bar blanking: status-bar messages will disappear
177 after 1 keystroke instead of 25. Note that option -c (--con‐
178 stantshow) overrides this.
179 -V, --version
181 Show the current version number and exit.
182 -W, --wordbounds
184 Detect word boundaries differently by treating punctuation char‐
185 acters as part of a word.
186 -X "characters", --wordchars="characters"
188 Specify which other characters (besides the normal alphanumeric
189 ones) should be considered as part of a word. This overrides
190 option -W (--wordbounds).
191 -Y name, --syntax=name
193 Specify the name of the syntax highlighting to use from among
194 the ones defined in the nanorc files.
195 -Z, --zap
197 Let an unmodified Backspace or Delete erase the marked region
198 (instead of a single character, and without affecting the cut‐
199 buffer).
200 -a, --atblanks
202 When doing soft line wrapping, wrap lines at whitespace instead
203 of always at the edge of the screen.
204 -b, --breaklonglines
206 Automatically hard-wrap the current line when it becomes over‐
207 long. (This option is the opposite of -w (--nowrap) -- the last
208 one given takes effect.)
209 -c, --constantshow
211 Constantly show the cursor position on the status bar. Note
212 that this overrides option -U (--quickblank).
213 -d, --rebinddelete
215 Interpret the Delete and Backspace keys differently so that both
216 Backspace and Delete work properly. You should only use this
217 option when on your system either Backspace acts like Delete or
218 Delete acts like Backspace.
219 -e, --emptyline
221 Do not use the line below the title bar, leaving it entirely
222 blank.
223 -f file, --rcfile=file
225 Read only this file for setting nano's options, instead of read‐
226 ing both the system-wide and the user's nanorc files.
227 -g, --showcursor
229 Make the cursor visible in the file browser (putting it on the
230 highlighted item) and in the help viewer. Useful for braille
231 users and people with poor vision.
232 -h, --help
234 Show a summary of the available command-line options and exit.
235 -i, --autoindent
237 Automatically indent a newly created line to the same number of
238 tabs and/or spaces as the previous line (or as the next line if
239 the previous line is the beginning of a paragraph).
240 -j, --jumpyscrolling
242 Scroll the buffer contents per half-screen instead of per line.
243 -k, --cutfromcursor
245 Make the 'Cut Text' command (normally ^K) cut from the current
246 cursor position to the end of the line, instead of cutting the
247 entire line.
248 -l, --linenumbers
250 Display line numbers to the left of the text area.
251 -m, --mouse
253 Enable mouse support, if available for your system. When
254 enabled, mouse clicks can be used to place the cursor, set the
255 mark (with a double click), and execute shortcuts. The mouse
256 will work in the X Window System, and on the console when gpm is
257 running. Text can still be selected through dragging by holding
258 down the Shift key.
259 -n, --noread
261 Treat any name given on the command line as a new file. This
262 allows nano to write to named pipes: it will start with a blank
263 buffer, and will write to the pipe when the user saves the
264 "file". This way nano can be used as an editor in combination
265 with for instance gpg without having to write sensitive data to
266 disk first.
267 -o directory, --operatingdir=directory
269 Set the operating directory. This makes nano set up something
270 similar to a chroot.
271 -p, --preserve
273 Preserve the XON and XOFF sequences (^Q and ^S) so they will be
274 caught by the terminal.
275 -r number, --fill=number
277 Set the target width for justifying and automatic hard-wrapping
278 at this number of columns. If the value is 0 or less, wrapping
279 will occur at the width of the screen minus number columns,
280 allowing the wrap point to vary along with the width of the
281 screen if the screen is resized. The default value is -8.
282 -s "program [argument ...]", --speller="program [argument ...]"
284 Use this command to perform spell checking and correcting,
285 instead of using the built-in corrector that calls hunspell or
286 GNU spell.
287 -t, --tempfile
289 Save a changed buffer without prompting (when exiting with ^X).
290 -u, --unix
292 Save a file by default in Unix format. This overrides nano's
293 default behavior of saving a file in the format that it had.
294 (This option has no effect when you also use --noconvert.)
295 -v, --view
297 Just view the file and disallow editing: read-only mode. This
298 mode allows the user to open also other files for viewing,
299 unless --restricted is given too.
300 -w, --nowrap
302 Do not automatically hard-wrap the current line when it becomes
303 overlong. This is the default. (This option is the opposite of
304 -b (--breaklonglines) -- the last one given takes effect.)
305 -x, --nohelp
308 Don't show the two help lines at the bottom of the screen.
309 -y, --afterends
311 Make Ctrl+Right stop at word ends instead of beginnings.
312 -z, --suspendable
314 Allow the user to suspend the editor (with ^Z by default).
315 -$, --softwrap
317 Display lines that exceed the screen's width over multiple
318 screen lines. (You can make this soft-wrapping occur at white‐
319 space instead of rudely at the screen's edge, by using also
320 --atblanks.) Since '$' normally refers to a variable in the
321 Unix shell, you should specify this option last when using other
322 options (e.g. 'nano -wS$') or pass it separately (e.g. 'nano -wS
323 -$').
324
327 Several of the above options can be switched on and off also while nano
328 is running. For example, M-L toggles the hard-wrapping of long lines,
329 M-S toggles soft-wrapping, M-N toggles line numbers, M-M toggles the
330 mouse, M-I auto-indentation, and M-X the help lines. See at the end of
331 the ^G help text for a complete list.
332
335 When --rcfile is given, nano will read just the specified file for set‐
336 ting its options and syntaxes and key bindings. Without that option,
337 nano will read two configuration files: first the system's nanorc (if
338 it exists), and then the user's nanorc (if it exists), either ~/.nanorc
339 or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/nano/nanorc or ~/.config/nano/nanorc, whichever is
340 encountered first. See nanorc(5) for more information on the possible
341 contents of those files.
342
345 If no alternative spell checker command is specified on the command
346 line nor in one of the nanorc files, nano will check the SPELL environ‐
347 ment variable for one.
348 In some cases nano will try to dump the buffer into an emergency file.
350 This will happen mainly if nano receives a SIGHUP or SIGTERM or runs
351 out of memory. It will write the buffer into a file named nano.save if
352 the buffer didn't have a name already, or will add a ".save" suffix to
353 the current filename. If an emergency file with that name already
354 exists in the current directory, it will add ".save" plus a number
355 (e.g. ".save.1") to the current filename in order to make it unique.
356 In multibuffer mode, nano will write all the open buffers to their
357 respective emergency files.
358
361 The recording and playback of keyboard macros works correctly only on a
362 terminal emulator, not on a Linux console (VT), because the latter does
363 not by default distinguish modified from unmodified arrow keys.
364 Please report any other bugs that you encounter via:
366 https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=nano.
367 When nano crashes, it will save any modified buffers to emergency .save
369 files. If you are able to reproduce the crash and you want to get a
370 backtrace, define the environment variable NANO_NOCATCH.
371
374 https://nano-editor.org/
375
378 nanorc(5)
379 /usr/share/doc/nano/ (or equivalent on your system)
381April 2020 version 4.9.2 NANO(1)