Nano Text Editor

Getting Started

Nano shows available shortcuts at the bottom of the screen. The ^ symbol means Ctrl, so ^X means Ctrl+X. Nano is designed to be simple and beginner-friendly.

$ nano textfile.txt

Key	Description
Ctrl+G	Display help text
Ctrl+X	Exit nano (prompts to save if modified)

Navigation

Use arrow keys for basic movement, or these shortcuts for faster navigation.

Key	Description
Ctrl+A	Move to beginning of line
Ctrl+E	Move to end of line
Ctrl+Y	Scroll up one page
Ctrl+V	Scroll down one page
Ctrl+_	Go to a specific line (and column) number
Ctrl+C	Show current cursor position (line, column)

File Operations

Nano prompts for confirmation before overwriting files.

Key	Description
Ctrl+O	Write out (save) the current file
Ctrl+R	Read (insert) another file into the current one

Search

Search is incremental — press the shortcut again to find the next match.

Key	Description
Ctrl+W	Search for text
Ctrl+\\	Search and replace

Editing

Cut and paste in nano works on whole lines by default. Use Ctrl+K to cut and Ctrl+U to paste.

Key	Description
Ctrl+K	Cut the current line (or selected text)
Ctrl+U	Paste (uncut) the last cut text
Ctrl+J	Justify the current paragraph
Ctrl+T	Execute a command (or spell check in older versions)
Ctrl+D	Delete the character under the cursor
Backspace	Delete the character before the cursor