Nano Text Editor

Getting Started

Nano is designed to be simple and beginner-friendly. It shows the most important shortcuts at the bottom of the screen: ^ means Ctrl and M- means Alt, so ^X is Ctrl+X and M-U is Alt+U.

$ nano textfile.txt

$ nano +25 textfile.txt

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

To save and quit: Ctrl+X, answer y, confirm the file name with Enter.Useful startup options:

Option	Description
+25	Open the file at line 25
-l	Show line numbers
-v	View mode (read-only)
-B	Keep a backup of the previous version when saving

Navigation

Use the 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+Left	Move to previous word
Ctrl+Right	Move to next word
Ctrl+_	Go to a specific line (and column) number
Ctrl+C	Show current cursor position (line, column)

File Operations

Nano prompts for the file name before writing, so you can also save under a new name.

Key	Description
Ctrl+O	Write out (save) the current file
Ctrl+R	Read (insert) another file into the current one
Alt+<	Switch to the previous open file
Alt+>	Switch to the next open file

Search and Replace

Search remembers the last term: press Enter at an empty search prompt to reuse it.

Key	Description
Ctrl+W	Search forward
Ctrl+Q	Search backward
Alt+W	Repeat search, next match
Alt+Q	Repeat search, previous match
Ctrl+\\	Search and replace

During replace, answer y to replace one match, n to skip, a to replace all.

Editing

Cut and paste work on whole lines by default. To work on a selection, set a mark first with Alt+A, then move the cursor to select.

Key	Description
Ctrl+K	Cut the current line (or selected text)
Alt+6	Copy the current line (or selected text)
Ctrl+U	Paste the last cut text
Alt+A	Start selecting text (set mark)
Alt+U	Undo
Alt+E	Redo
Ctrl+D	Delete the character under the cursor
Ctrl+J	Justify the current paragraph
Ctrl+T	Execute a command (or spell check in older versions)
Alt+#	Toggle line numbers

Holding Shift with the arrow keys also selects text in modern nano versions.

Configuration

Nano reads ~/.nanorc at startup. Options set there apply to every session.

$ set linenumbers

$ set tabsize 4

$ set tabstospaces

$ set autoindent

$ set mouse