Most Useful Nano Commands and Shortcuts.

Working under any Linux Server involves lots and lots of files configuration. Some use Vi, Vim, or Emacs, yet powerful but somehow tedious to learn.
For those who need a more simple and versatile text editor, there is nano.

GNU nano is a small and friendly text editor. Besides basic text editing, nano offers features like undo/redo, syntax coloring, interactive search-and-replace, auto-indentation, line numbers, word completion, file locking, backup files, internationalization support, and more.

Installing Nano

By default, nano is pre-installed in most Linux distributions. Use the next commands to check or to install respectively.
Here for Debian/Ubuntu system:

$ nano --version

Output

 GNU nano, version 6.2
 (C) 1999-2011, 2013-2022 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 (C) 2014-2022 the contributors to nano
 Compiled options: --disable-libmagic --enable-utf8

$ sudo apt install nano

Our Nano Top Shortcut Keys

Here is the list of all nano shortcuts available in Linux.

Command	Action
Ctrl + O	Save A File
Ctrl + _	Go to Line X
Alt + B	Create a Backup
Ctrl + X	Exit file, with prompt
Alt + U	Undo an action
Ctrl + G	Get Help
Ctrl + F	Single character forward shift
Ctrl + B	Single character backward shift
Ctrl + Space	Move one word forward
Alt + Space	Move one work backward
Ctrl + P	Move to the preceding line
Ctrl + N	Move to the succeeding line
Ctrl + V	Move to next page
Ctrl + Y	Return to the preceding page
Ctrl + A	Move to the Begin of the line
Ctrl + E	Move to Concluding line
Ctrl + W	To open Search prompt
Ctrl + T	To Search Line Number
Alt + W	Go to the Next result
Ctrl + R	Replace Searched Text
Alt + 6	Cut Text / Line
Ctrl + K	Copy Text / Line
Ctrl + U	Paste Copied Data
nano	To create a new file in the editor
nano filename.txt	To open a file in the editor

Below, is a practical example:

... you want to open a file with the cursor on a specific line and character.
You can do this as such:

$ sudo nano +LineNumber Testing.txt

Replace LineNumber with the exact line number where you want to jump to. This method is very useful when working with large files in which it is difficult to manually travel from line to line.

Of course, there are many shortcut keys that can be used to navigate and do tasks in nano. The above keys are a few of the useful shortcut keys used in that editor.

How to Move to the End of the Line

This can come in handy when dealing with large files. Click "Ctrl + W", this will evoke the Search option then press "Ctrl+ V". As you can see your cursor has moved to the end of the last line.

That’s all with nano, stay connected with snubmonkey for more exciting and interesting future posts.