Yeah! Nano is so powerful when you master the main commands and shortcuts

It can be hard to start as a beginner, but when you master the keys shortcuts you will save many time in files edition

As an old vim user, I know what I’m talking about 🙂 but Raspberry Pi and Raspbian promote nano as the default editor, so it’s better to know how to use it

You’ll like it, I promise you

What are the main nano commands and shortcuts to know?

Nano offers commands and shortcuts for different things you have to know:

Directly in the nano command or in editor

Shortcuts for file management

Search and navigation shortcuts

Content edition

We’ll see everything today, so if you remember them and use them as often as possible, you’ll master the main nano commands and shortcuts

I voluntarily removed everything that is not indispensable, so you can focus on the primary shortcuts

At any time, you can check the help in nano to see if a shortcut exists for what you are looking for

Nano commands

Before to open a file and see all the shortcuts available, you have to know that nano offers many options when opening a file

In this first part, I’ll show you what you can do directly in the command line and general shortcuts:

Opening nano

nano

nano <filename>

The filename can be an existing file or the new filename you want to create

It can be just the name in the current folder, or a path to the file

Don’t forget to use sudo if you need root access to edit the file:

sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config

The filename can be an existing file or the new filename you want to create It can be just the name in the current folder, or a path to the file Don’t forget to use sudo if you need root access to edit the file: Nano options

You can start nano with many useful options I will show you here: +line,column : open the file and place the cursor at the specified position -B : create a backup file when saving (backup file starts with a ~) -C <dir> : keep each version of the file in the specified backup directory -Y <language> : force the syntax highlighting for the specified language

Available languages are located in /usr/share/nano/*.nanorc -l : Shows line numbers in the left column

-v : Read only mode

You can start nano with many useful options I will show you here: Exit nano

To exit Nano at anytime, you can use CTRL+X

To exit Nano at anytime, you can use Shortcut cancel

Nano provides many shortcuts and if you type one by error, you can exit the contextual menu with CTRL+C

Files

For file management you don’t have many commands to know, but to be sure you know how to do this, here are the two you need to use:

Create a new file

To create a new file, the easiest way is to tell nano the filename directly when starting it, like this:

nano /dir/file.txt

If you just use nano to open it, it will ask you a filename when saving

To create a new file, the easiest way is to tell nano the filename directly when starting it, like this: If you just use to open it, it will ask you a filename when saving Save a file

To save a file at anytime you can use CTRL+O

Don’t ask me how they chose the shortcut key ^^

CTRL+S ? Nooo, it would have been too easy for us 🙂

Search and in file navigation

Another feature I use a lot with vim and never took the time to master on nano, was the search in file

Here is everything you need to know about this:

Search for a string

To locate a string in a file, you can use CTRL+W

Then enter the string (or regular expression if you want), and confirm with Enter

While typing the string, you can use a few options to filter your search results (like case-sensitive search)

To locate a string in a file, you can use Then enter the string (or regular expression if you want), and confirm with Enter While typing the string, you can use a few options to filter your search results (like case-sensitive search) Next item in the search results

To move to the next matching result, use ALT+W

To move to the next matching result, use Go back to the first line of the file

If you are lost in the file, you can move back to the beginning with ALT+\

If you are lost in the file, you can move back to the beginning with Go to the end of file

Same thing, to move directly to the end of the file, use ALT+/

Please, don’t use the down arrow 58 times to do this 🙂

Same thing, to move directly to the end of the file, use Please, don’t use the down arrow 58 times to do this 🙂 Move one screen up

For fast scrolling, use CTRL+Y to move to the previous page of the file

For fast scrolling, use to move to the previous page of the file Move one scree down

And the opposite, CTRL+V is to move to the next page

Navigation through lines and columns

To move more precisely in a file, here are the keys and shortcut to use:

Move on a line or from line to line

Arrows 🙂

I don’t really understand why there are so many shortcuts to move from a character or line to another

For me arrows are the easiest way to do the same

Arrow up : previous line

Arrow down : next line

Arrow left : previous character on the same line

Arrow right : next character on the same line

I think it’s a good idea to keep all of this easy when possible

Arrows 🙂 I don’t really understand why there are so many shortcuts to move from a character or line to another For me arrows are the easiest way to do the same : previous line : next line : previous character on the same line : next character on the same line I think it’s a good idea to keep all of this easy when possible Go directly to the beginning of the line

To go to the first character of the line you can use CTRL+A

To go to the first character of the line you can use Go to the end of the line

And for the last character on the line, use CTRL+E

Content edition

Ok in this part we move to the file-edition process

You can save time by remembering a few shortcuts

Undo

To cancel your last action you can use ALT+U

To cancel your last action you can use Redo

If you change your mind, use ALT+E to finally make it

If you change your mind, use to finally make it Copy and paste strings or lines

Another thing to keep simple, don’t use shortcuts for this

When you use nano on your Raspberry Pi you’re probably using SSH, so use your client features to manage copy and paste

Copy : Select a text or line with the mouse

Paste : Move to the paste spot and right-click to paste

Another thing to keep simple, don’t use shortcuts for this When you use nano on your Raspberry Pi you’re probably using SSH, so use your client features to manage copy and paste : Select a text or line with the mouse : Move to the paste spot and right-click to paste Cut an entire line

If you want to cut or remove a line, you can use CTRL+K to do this

I often use this to remove useless lines

If you want to cut or remove a line, you can use to do this I often use this to remove useless lines Paste the line

To paste the line you just cut, use CTRL+U

To paste the line you just cut, use Editing

For everything else, use nano like any other text editor

It’s a nano strength to allow you editing a file directly

Working keys are for example Backspace to delete a character, TAB to indent, Enter to add a new line, etc.

Nano options

And finally, here are a few other useful shortcuts for Nano I didn’t give you in the previous parts:

Remove the help

To stay focus on your file, you can hide the bottom shortcuts help with ALT+X

This way you get one or two extra lines of your files on the same screen

Same shortcut to show it back

To stay focus on your file, you can hide the bottom shortcuts help with This way you get one or two extra lines of your files on the same screen Same shortcut to show it back Disable syntax highlighting

When syntax highlighting doesn’t help, you can disable it while editing with ALT+Y

Did you never had the ugly dark blue color exactly where you need to focus? 🙂

When syntax highlighting doesn’t help, you can disable it while editing with Did you never had the ugly dark blue color exactly where you need to focus? 🙂 Enable backup

If you didn’t set it when starting nano, you can enable backup at anytime while in nano with ALT+B

If you didn’t set it when starting nano, you can enable backup at anytime while in nano with Display the help for all shortcuts

If one shortcut I give you here was not clear, or if you want to see the long list of not so useful shortcuts, use CTRL+G to display the nano help

Conclusion

That’s it!

We are already at the end of this list of commands and shortcuts to know to use nano like a pro

I hope this post was useful for you, let me know in the comment

If you are nice, I will try to prepare a Cheat Sheet in PDF with everything on one page

So you can print it and keep it close to your Raspberry Pi 🙂