Nano Text Editor Cheatsheet

Photo by Adam Juman on Unsplash

Main commands for Nano:

Good site to go further: https://www.nano-editor.org/dist/latest/cheatsheet.html

The basics

• ctrl + O : save as
• ctrl + S : save
• ctrl + X : exit
• ctrl + G : help
• alt + U : undo action
• alt + E : redo action
• alt + Del : delete current line

Search

• ctrl + W : find the word you want (forward). type alt + W to go to the next word
• ctrl + Q : find the word you want (backward). type alt + Q to go to the previous word
• alt + R : find and replace

Copy / pasting

• ctrl + K : cut the line or the selected section
• alt + 6 : copy the selected section
• ctrl + U : paste

Move around

• ctrl + _ : start at the line + column you want to
• ctrl + C : display the current line and column number
• cltr + A and ctrl + E: go to the beginning of line/end of the line
• ctrl + arrow up or down: move by block

View

• nano file.txt -v : means view only, so you can’t modify the file
• alt + 3 : comment / uncomment the line. Default #
• alt + N : turn line number on or off
• alt + P : turn visible white space on and off
• alt + O : convert tabs to space on or off

Multiline selection

• shift + arrow keys or alt + A