.\" Hey, EMACS: -*- nroff -*- .\" $Id$ .\" .\" Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, .\" 2009, 2010, 2013, 2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc. .\" .\" This document is dual-licensed. You may distribute and/or modify it .\" under the terms of either of the following licenses: .\" .\" * The GNU General Public License, as published by the Free Software .\" Foundation, version 3 or (at your option) any later version. You .\" should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License .\" along with this program. If not, see .\" . .\" .\" * The GNU Free Documentation License, as published by the Free .\" Software Foundation, version 1.2 or (at your option) any later .\" version, with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no .\" Back-Cover Texts. You should have received a copy of the GNU Free .\" Documentation License along with this program. If not, see .\" . .\" .TH NANO 1 "version 2.4.3" "August 2015" .\" Please adjust this date whenever revising the manpage. .\" .SH NAME nano \- Nano's ANOther editor, an enhanced free Pico clone .SH SYNOPSIS .B nano .RI [ options "] [[+" line , column "]\ " file "]..." .SH DESCRIPTION \fBnano\fP is a small, free and friendly editor which aims to replace Pico, the default editor included in the non-free Pine package. On top of copying Pico's look and feel, \fBnano\fP also implements some missing (or disabled by default) features in Pico, such as "search and replace" and "go to line and column number". .SH EDITING Entering text and moving around in a file is straightforward: typing the letters and using the normal cursor movement keys. Commands are entered by using the Control (^) and the Alt or Meta (M-) keys. Typing \fB^K\fR deletes the current line and puts it in the cutbuffer. Consecutive \fB^K\fRs will put all deleted lines together in the cutbuffer. Any cursor movement or executing any other command will cause the next \fB^K\fR to overwrite the cutbuffer. A \fB^U\fR will paste the current contents of the cutbuffer at the current cursor position. .PP When a more precise piece of text needs to be cut or copied, one can mark its start with \fB^6\fR, move the cursor to its end (the marked text will be highlighted), and then use \fB^K\fR to cut it, or \fBM-6\fR to copy it to the cutbuffer. One can also save the marked text to a file with \fB^O\fR, or spell check it with \fB^T\fR. .PP The two lines at the bottom of the screen show the most important commands; the built-in help (\fB^G\fR) lists all the available ones. The default key bindings can be changed via the .nanorc file -- see .BR nanorc (5). .SH OPTIONS .TP .B +\fIline\fP,\fIcolumn\fP Places the cursor on line number \fIline\fP and at column number \fIcolumn\fP (at least one of which must be specified) on startup, instead of the default line 1, column 1. .TP .BR \-A ", " \-\-smarthome Make the Home key smarter. When Home is pressed anywhere but at the very beginning of non-whitespace characters on a line, the cursor will jump to that beginning (either forwards or backwards). If the cursor is already at that position, it will jump to the true beginning of the line. .TP .BR \-B ", " \-\-backup When saving a file, back up the previous version of it, using the current filename suffixed with a tilde (\fB~\fP). .TP .BR \-C\ \fIdirectory\fR ", " \-\-backupdir= \fIdirectory Make and keep not just one backup file, but make and keep a uniquely numbered one every time a file is saved -- when backups are enabled. The uniquely numbered files are stored in the specified \fIdirectory\fR. .TP .BR \-D ", " \-\-boldtext Use bold text instead of reverse video text. .TP .BR \-E ", " \-\-tabstospaces Convert typed tabs to spaces. .TP .BR \-F ", " \-\-multibuffer Enable multiple file buffers (if support for them has been compiled in). .TP .BR \-G ", " \-\-locking Enable vim-style file locking when editing files. .TP .BR \-H ", " \-\-historylog Log search and replace strings to \fI~/.nano/search_history\fP, so they can be retrieved in later sessions. .TP .BR \-I ", " \-\-ignorercfiles Don't look at the system's \fBnanorc\fP nor at \fB~/.nanorc\fP. .TP .BR \-K ", " \-\-rebindkeypad Interpret the numeric keypad keys so that they all work properly. You should only need to use this option if they don't, as mouse support won't work properly with this option enabled. .TP .BR \-L ", " \-\-nonewlines Don't add newlines to the ends of files. .TP .BR \-N ", " \-\-noconvert Disable automatic conversion of files from DOS/Mac format. .TP .BR \-O ", " \-\-morespace Use the blank line below the titlebar as extra editing space. .TP .BR \-P ", " \-\-positionlog Log and later read back the location of the cursor and place it there again. (The old form of this option, \fB\-\-poslog\fR, is deprecated.) .TP .BR "\-Q ""\fIcharacters\fB""" ", " "\-\-quotestr=""" \fIcharacters\fR """ Set the quoting string for justifying. The default is \fB"^([\ \\t]*[#:>\\|}])+"\fP if extended regular expression support is available, or \fB">\ "\fP otherwise. Note that \fB\\t\fP stands for a Tab. .TP .BR \-R ", " \-\-restricted Restricted mode: don't read or write to any file not specified on the command line; don't read any \fInanorc\fP files nor history files; don't allow suspending nor spell checking; don't allow a file to be appended to, prepended to, or saved under a different name if it already has one; and don't use backup files. This restricted mode is also accessible by invoking \fBnano\fP with any name beginning with 'r' (e.g. "rnano"). .TP .BR \-S ", " \-\-smooth Enable smooth scrolling. Text will scroll line-by-line, instead of the usual chunk-by-chunk behavior. .TP .BR \-T\ \fInumber\fR ", " \-\-tabsize= \fInumber Set the size (width) of a tab to \fInumber\fP columns. The value of \fInumber\fP must be greater than 0. The default value is 8. .TP .BR \-U ", " \-\-quickblank Do quick statusbar blanking. Statusbar messages will disappear after 1 keystroke instead of 25. Note that \fB\-c\fP overrides this. .TP .BR \-V ", " \-\-version Show the current version number and exit. .TP .BR \-W ", " \-\-wordbounds Detect word boundaries more accurately by treating punctuation characters as part of a word. .TP .BR \-Y\ \fIname\fR ", " \-\-syntax= \fIname Specify the name of the syntax highlighting to use from among the ones defined in the \fInanorc\fP files. .TP .BR \-c ", " \-\-constantshow Constantly show the cursor position. Note that this overrides \fB\-U\fP. .TP .BR \-d ", " \-\-rebinddelete Interpret the Delete key differently so that both Backspace and Delete work properly. You should only need to use this option if Backspace acts like Delete on your system. .TP .BR \-h ", " \-\-help Show a summary of the available command-line options and exit. .TP .BR \-i ", " \-\-autoindent Indent new lines to the previous line's indentation. Useful when editing source code. .TP .BR \-k ", " \-\-cut Make the 'Cut Text' command (normally ^K) cut from the current cursor position to the end of the line, instead of cutting the entire line. .TP .BR \-l ", " \-\-nofollow If the file being edited is a symbolic link, replace the link with a new file instead of following it. Good for editing files in \fI/tmp\fP, perhaps? .TP .BR \-m ", " \-\-mouse Enable mouse support, if available for your system. When enabled, mouse clicks can be used to place the cursor, set the mark (with a double click), and execute shortcuts. The mouse will work in the X Window System, and on the console when gpm is running. Text can still be selected through dragging by holding down the Shift key. .TP .BR \-n ", " \-\-noread Treat any name given on the command line as a new file. This allows \fBnano\fR to write to named pipes: it will start with a blank buffer, and will write to the pipe when the user saves the "file". This way \fBnano\fR can be used as an editor in combination with for instance \fBgpg\fR without having to write sensitive data to disk first. .TP .BR \-o\ \fIdirectory\fR ", " \-\-operatingdir= \fIdirectory Set the operating directory. This makes \fBnano\fP set up something similar to a chroot. .TP .BR \-p ", " \-\-preserve Preserve the XON and XOFF sequences (^Q and ^S) so they will be caught by the terminal. .TP .BR \-q ", " \-\-quiet Do not report errors in the \fInanorc\fP files nor ask them to be acknowledged by pressing Enter at startup. .TP .BR \-r\ \fInumber\fR ", " \-\-fill= \fInumber Hard-wrap lines at column \fInumber\fP. If this value is 0 or less, wrapping will occur at the width of the screen less \fInumber\fP columns, allowing the wrap point to vary along with the width of the screen if the screen is resized. The default value is \-8. This option conflicts with .B \-w -- the last one given takes effect. .TP .BR \-s\ \fIprogram\fR ", " \-\-speller= \fIprogram Use this alternative spell checker command. .TP .BR \-t ", " \-\-tempfile Always save a changed buffer without prompting. Same as Pico's \fB\-t\fP option. .TP .BR \-u ", " \-\-unix Save a file by default in Unix format. This overrides nano's default behavior of saving a file in the format that it had. (This option has no effect when you also use \fB\-\-noconvert\fR.) .TP .BR \-v ", " \-\-view View-file (read-only) mode. .TP .BR \-w ", " \-\-nowrap Disable the hard-wrapping of long lines. This option conflicts with .B \-r -- the last one given takes effect. .TP .BR \-x ", " \-\-nohelp Don't show the two help lines at the bottom of the screen. .TP .BR \-z ", " \-\-suspend Enable the suspend ability. .TP .BR \-$ ", " \-\-softwrap Enable 'soft wrapping'. This will make \fBnano\fP attempt to display the entire contents of any line, even if it is longer than the screen width, by continuing it over multiple screen lines. Since \&'$' normally refers to a variable in the Unix shell, you should specify this option last when using other options (e.g.\& 'nano \-wS$') or pass it separately (e.g.\& 'nano \-wS \-$'). .TP .BR \-a ", " \-b ", " \-e ", " \-f ", " \-g ", " \-j Ignored, for compatibility with Pico. .SH INITIALIZATION FILE \fBnano\fP will read initialization files in the following order: the system's \fBnanorc\fP (if it exists), and then the user's \fB~/.nanorc\fP (if it exists). Please see .BR nanorc (5) for more information on the possible contents of those files. .SH NOTES If no alternative spell checker command is specified on the command line nor in one of the \fInanorc\fP files, \fBnano\fP will check the \fBSPELL\fP environment variable for one. In some cases \fBnano\fP will try to dump the buffer into an emergency file. This will happen mainly if \fBnano\fP receives a SIGHUP or SIGTERM or runs out of memory. It will write the buffer into a file named \fInano.save\fP if the buffer didn't have a name already, or will add a ".save" suffix to the current filename. If an emergency file with that name already exists in the current directory, it will add ".save" plus a number (e.g.\& ".save.1") to the current filename in order to make it unique. In multibuffer mode, \fBnano\fP will write all the open buffers to their respective emergency files. .SH BUGS Please report any bugs that you encounter via https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=nano. .SH HOMEPAGE http://www.nano-editor.org/ .SH SEE ALSO .PD 0 .TP \fBnanorc\fP(5) .PP \fI/usr/share/doc/nano/\fP (or equivalent on your system) .SH AUTHOR Chris Allegretta , et al (see the files \fIAUTHORS\fP and \fITHANKS\fP for details). This manual page was originally written by Jordi Mallach , for the Debian system (but may be used by others).