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 -Q str (--quotestr=str)
78 Set the quoting string for justifying. The default is
79 "^([ \t]*[#:>\|}])+" if extended regular expression support is
80 available, or "> " otherwise. Note that \t stands for a Tab.
81 -R (--restricted)
83 Restricted mode: don't read or write to any file not specified
84 on the command line; read any nanorc files; allow suspending;
85 allow a file to be appended to, prepended to, or saved under a
86 different name if it already has one; or use backup files or
87 spell checking. Also accessible by invoking nano with any name
88 beginning with 'r' (e.g. "rnano").
89 -S (--smooth)
91 Enable smooth scrolling. Text will scroll line-by-line, instead
92 of the usual chunk-by-chunk behavior.
93 -T cols (--tabsize=cols)
95 Set the size (width) of a tab to cols columns. The value of
96 cols must be greater than 0. The default value is 8.
97 -U (--quickblank)
99 Do quick statusbar blanking. Statusbar messages will disappear
100 after 1 keystroke instead of 25. Note that -c overrides this.
101 -V (--version)
103 Show the current version number and exit.
104 -W (--wordbounds)
106 Detect word boundaries more accurately by treating punctuation
107 characters as part of a word.
108 -Y str (--syntax=str)
110 Specify a specific syntax highlighting from the nanorc to use,
111 if available.
112 -c (--const)
114 Constantly show the cursor position. Note that this overrides
115 -U.
116 -d (--rebinddelete)
118 Interpret the Delete key differently so that both Backspace and
119 Delete work properly. You should only need to use this option
120 if Backspace acts like Delete on your system.
121 -h (--help)
123 Show a summary of command line options and exit.
124 -i (--autoindent)
126 Indent new lines to the previous line's indentation. Useful
127 when editing source code.
128 -k (--cut)
130 Enable cut from cursor to end of line.
131 -l (--nofollow)
133 If the file being edited is a symbolic link, replace the link
134 with a new file instead of following it. Good for editing files
135 in /tmp, perhaps?
136 -m (--mouse)
138 Enable mouse support, if available for your system. When
139 enabled, mouse clicks can be used to place the cursor, set the
140 mark (with a double click), and execute shortcuts. The mouse
141 will work in the X Window System, and on the console when gpm is
142 running.
143 -o dir (--operatingdir=dir)
145 Set operating directory. Makes nano set up something similar to
146 a chroot.
147 -p (--preserve)
149 Preserve the XON and XOFF sequences (^Q and ^S) so they will be
150 caught by the terminal.
151 -q (--quiet)
153 Do not report errors in the nanorc file and ask them to be
154 acknowledged by pressing Enter at startup.
155 -r cols (--fill=cols)
157 Wrap lines at column cols. If this value is 0 or less, wrapping
158 will occur at the width of the screen less cols columns, allow‐
159 ing the wrap point to vary along with the width of the screen if
160 the screen is resized. The default value is -8.
161 -s prog (--speller=prog)
163 Enable alternative spell checker command.
164 -t (--tempfile)
166 Always save changed buffer without prompting. Same as Pico's -t
167 option.
168 -u (--undo)
170 Enable experimental generic-purpose undo code. By default, the
171 undo and redo shortcuts are Meta-U and Meta-E, respectively.
172 -v (--view)
174 View file (read only) mode.
175 -w (--nowrap)
177 Disable wrapping of long lines.
178 -x (--nohelp)
180 Disable help screen at bottom of editor.
181 -z (--suspend)
183 Enable suspend ability.
184 -$ (--softwrap)
186 Enable 'soft wrapping'. nano will attempt to display the entire
187 contents of a line, even if it is longer than the screen width.
188 Since '$' normally refers to a variable in the Unix shell, you
189 should specify this option last when using other options (e.g.
190 'nano -wS$') or pass it separately (e.g. 'nano -wS -$').
191 -a, -b, -e, -f, -g, -j
193 Ignored, for compatibility with Pico.
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197 nano will read initialization files in the following order:
198 SYSCONFDIR/nanorc, then ~/.nanorc. Please see nanorc(5) and the exam‐
199 ple file nanorc.sample, both of which should be provided with nano.
200
203 If no alternative spell checker command is specified on the command
204 line or in one of the nanorc files, nano will check the SPELL environ‐
205 ment variable for one.
206 In some cases nano will try to dump the buffer into an emergency file.
208 This will happen mainly if nano receives a SIGHUP or SIGTERM or runs
209 out of memory. It will write the buffer into a file named nano.save if
210 the buffer didn't have a name already, or will add a ".save" suffix to
211 the current filename. If an emergency file with that name already
212 exists in the current directory, it will add ".save" plus a number
213 (e.g. ".save.1") to the current filename in order to make it unique.
214 In multibuffer mode, nano will write all the open buffers to their
215 respective emergency files.
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219 Please send any comments or bug reports to nano@nano-editor.org.
220 The nano mailing list is available from nano-devel@gnu.org.
222 To subscribe, email to nano-devel-request@gnu.org with a subject of
224 "subscribe".
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228 http://www.nano-editor.org/
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232 nanorc(5)
233 /usr/share/doc/nano/ (or equivalent on your system)
234
236 Chris Allegretta <chrisa@asty.org>, et al (see AUTHORS and THANKS for
237 details). This manual page was originally written by Jordi Mallach
238 <jordi@gnu.org>, for the Debian system (but may be used by others).
239November 30, 2009 version 2.2.0 NANO(1)