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

or

$ 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.