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NANORC(5) File Formats Manual NANORC(5) NAME nanorc - GNU nano's configuration file DESCRIPTION The nanorc files contain the default settings for nano, a small and friendly text editor. During startup, if --rcfile is not given, nano reads two files: first the system-wide settings, from /etc/nanorc (the exact path might be different on your system), and then the user-spe- cific settings, either from ~/.nanorc or from $XDG_CON- FIG_HOME/nano/nanorc or from ~/.config/nano/nanorc, whichever is en- countered first. If --rcfile is given, nano reads just the specified settings file. NOTICE Since version 8.0, to be newcomer friendly, ^F starts a forward search, ^B starts a backward search, M-F searches the next occurrence forward, and M-B searches the next occurrence backward. If you want those key- strokes to do what they did before version 8.0, add the following lines at the end of your nanorc file: bind ^F forward main bind ^B back main bind M-F formatter main bind M-B linter main OPTIONS The configuration file accepts a series of set and unset commands, which can be used to configure nano on startup without using command- line options. Additionally, there are some commands to define syntax highlighting and to rebind keys -- see the two separate sections on those. nano reads one command per line. All commands and keywords should be written in lowercase. Options in nanorc files take precedence over nano's defaults, and com- mand-line options override nanorc settings. Also, options that do not take an argument are unset by default. So using the unset command is only needed when wanting to override a setting of the system's nanorc file in your own nanorc. Options that take an argument cannot be un- set. Quotes inside the characters parameters below should not be escaped. The last double quote on the line will be seen as the closing quote. The supported commands and arguments are: set afterends Make Ctrl+Right and Ctrl+Delete stop at word ends instead of begin- nings. set allow_insecure_backup When backing up files, allow the backup to succeed even if its per- missions can't be (re)set due to special OS considerations. You should NOT enable this option unless you are sure you need it. set atblanks When soft line wrapping is enabled, make it wrap lines at blank characters (tabs and spaces) instead of always at the edge of the screen. set autoindent Automatically indent a newly created line to the same number of tabs and/or spaces as the previous line (or as the next line if the pre- vious line is the beginning of a paragraph). set backup When saving a file, create a backup file by adding a tilde (~) to the file's name. set backupdir directory 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 with set backup or --backup or -B. The uniquely numbered files are stored in the specified directory. set boldtext Use bold instead of reverse video for the title bar, status bar, prompt bar, mini bar, key combos, line numbers, and selected text. This can be overridden by setting the options titlecolor, statuscolor, promptcolor, minicolor, keycolor, numbercolor, and/or selectedcolor. set bookstyle When justifying, treat any line that starts with whitespace as the beginning of a paragraph (unless auto-indenting is on). set brackets "characters" Set the characters treated as closing brackets when justifying para- graphs. This may not include blank characters. Only closing punc- tuation (see set punct), optionally followed by the specified clos- ing brackets, can end sentences. The default value is ""')>]}". set breaklonglines Automatically hard-wrap the current line when it becomes overlong -- that is: when it becomes wider than the value given with set fill (which defaults to the width of the terminal minus eight). set casesensitive Do case-sensitive searches by default. set colonparsing When a filename given on the command line ends in a colon plus dig- its and this filename does not exist, then snip the colon plus dig- its and understand the digits as a line number. If the trimmed filename does not exist either, then repeat the process and under- stand the obtained two numbers as line and column number. But if the doubly trimmed filename does not exist either, then forget the trimming and accept the original filename as is. To disable this colon parsing for some file, use +1 or similar before the relevant filename. set constantshow Constantly report the cursor position on the status bar. This over- rides the option quickblank. set cutfromcursor Use cut-from-cursor-to-end-of-line by default, instead of cutting the whole line. set emptyline Do not use the line below the title bar, leaving it entirely blank. set errorcolor [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor Use this color combination for the status bar when an error message is displayed. The default value is bold,white,red. See set titlecolor for valid color names. set fill number Set the target width for justifying and automatic hard-wrapping at this number of columns. If the value is 0 or less, wrapping occurs at the width of the screen minus number columns, allowing the wrap point to vary along with the width of the screen if the screen is resized. The default value is -8. set functioncolor [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor Use this color combination for the concise function descriptions in the two help lines at the bottom of the screen. See set titlecolor for more details. set guidestripe number Draw a vertical stripe at the given column, to help judge the width of the text. (The color of the stripe can be changed with set stripecolor.) set historylog Save the last hundred search strings and replacement strings and ex- ecuted commands, so they can be easily reused in later sessions. set indicator Display a "scrollbar" on the righthand side of the edit window. It shows the position of the viewport in the buffer and how much of the buffer is covered by the viewport. set jumpyscrolling Scroll the buffer contents per half-screen instead of per line. set keycolor [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor Use this color combination for the shortcut key combos in the two help lines at the bottom of the screen. See set titlecolor for more details. set linenumbers Display line numbers to the left of the text area. (Any line with an anchor additionally gets a mark in the margin.) set locking Enable vim-style lock-files for when editing files. set magic When neither the file's name nor its first line give a clue, try us- ing libmagic to determine the applicable syntax. (Calling libmagic can be relatively time consuming. It is therefore not done by de- fault.) set matchbrackets "characters" Specify the opening and closing brackets that can be found by bracket searches. This may not include blank characters. The open- ing set must come before the closing set, and the two sets must be in the same order. The default value is "(<[{)>]}". set minibar Suppress the title bar and instead show information about the cur- rent buffer at the bottom of the screen, in the space for the status bar. In this "mini bar" the filename is shown on the left, followed by an asterisk if the buffer has been modified. On the right are displayed the current line and column number, the code of the char- acter under the cursor (in Unicode format: U+xxxx), the same flags as are shown by set stateflags, and a percentage that expresses how far the cursor is into the file (linewise). When a file is loaded or saved, and also when switching between buffers, the number of lines in the buffer is displayed after the filename. This number is cleared upon the next keystroke, or replaced with an [i/n] counter when multiple buffers are open. The line plus column numbers and the character code are displayed only when set constantshow is used, and can be toggled on and off with M-C. The state flags are dis- played only when set stateflags is used. set minicolor [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor Use this color combination for the mini bar. (When this option is not specified, the colors of the title bar are used.) See set titlecolor for more details. set mouse Enable mouse support, if available for your system. When enabled, mouse clicks can be used to place the cursor, set the mark (with two clicks), and execute shortcuts. The mouse works 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. set multibuffer When reading in a file with ^R, insert it into a new buffer by de- fault. set noconvert Don't convert files from DOS/Mac format. set nohelp Don't display the two help lines at the bottom of the screen. set nonewlines Don't automatically add a newline when a text does not end with one. (This can cause you to save non-POSIX text files.) set nowrap Deprecated option since it has become the default setting. When needed, use unset breaklonglines instead. set numbercolor [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor Use this color combination for line numbers. See set titlecolor for more details. set operatingdir directory At startup, make nano change to the given directory, and allow read- ing and writing files only in this directory and its subdirectories. set positionlog Save the positions of cursor and anchors between editing sessions. These positions are remembered for the 200 most-recently edited files. set preserve Preserve the XOFF and XON sequences (^S and ^Q) so that they are caught by the terminal (stopping and resuming the output). set promptcolor [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor Use this color combination for the prompt bar. (When this option is not specified, the colors of the title bar are used.) See set titlecolor for more details. set punct "characters" Set the characters treated as closing punctuation when justifying paragraphs. This may not include blank characters. Only the speci- fied closing punctuation, optionally followed by closing brackets (see set brackets), can end sentences. The default value is "!.?". set quickblank Make status-bar messages disappear after 1 keystroke instead of af- ter 20. Note that option constantshow overrides this. When option minibar or zero is in effect, quickblank makes a message disappear after 0.8 seconds instead of after the default 1.5 seconds. set quotestr "regex" Set the regular expression for matching the quoting part of a line. The default value is "^([ \t]*([!#%:;>|}]|//))+". (Note that \t stands for an actual Tab character.) This makes it possible to re- justify blocks of quoted text when composing email, and to rewrap blocks of line comments when writing source code. set rawsequences Interpret escape sequences directly, instead of asking ncurses to translate them. (If you need this option to get some keys to work properly, it means that the terminfo terminal description that is used does not fully match the actual behavior of your terminal. This can happen when you ssh into a BSD machine, for example.) Us- ing this option disables nano's mouse support. set rebinddelete Interpret the Delete and Backspace keys differently so that both Backspace and Delete work properly. You should only use this option when on your system either Backspace acts like Delete or Delete acts like Backspace. set regexp Do regular-expression searches by default. Regular expressions in nano are of the extended type (ERE). set saveonexit Save a changed buffer automatically on exit (^X); don't prompt. set scrollercolor fgcolor,bgcolor Use this color combination for the indicator alias "scrollbar". See set titlecolor for more details. set selectedcolor [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor Use this color combination for selected text. See set titlecolor for more details. set showcursor Put the cursor on the highlighted item in the file browser, and show the cursor in the help viewer, to aid braille users and people with poor vision. set 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 jumps to that beginning (either forwards or backwards). If the cur- sor is already at that position, it jumps to the true beginning of the line. set softwrap Display lines that exceed the screen's width over multiple screen lines. (You can make this soft-wrapping occur at whitespace instead of rudely at the screen's edge, by using also set atblanks.) set speller "program [argument ...]" Use the given program to do spell checking and correcting, instead of using the built-in corrector that calls hunspell(1) or spell(1). set spotlightcolor [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor Use this color combination for highlighting a search match. The de- fault value is black,lightyellow. See set titlecolor for valid color names. set stateflags Use the top-right corner of the screen for showing some state flags: I when auto-indenting, M when the mark is on, L when hard-wrapping (breaking long lines), R when recording a macro, and S when soft- wrapping. When the buffer is modified, a star (*) is shown after the filename in the center of the title bar. set statuscolor [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor Use this color combination for the status bar. See set titlecolor for more details. set stripecolor [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor Use this color combination for the vertical guiding stripe. See set titlecolor for more details. set tabsize number Use a tab size of number columns. The value of number must be greater than 0. The default value is 8. set tabstospaces Convert each typed tab to spaces -- to the number of spaces that a tab at that position would take up. (Note: pasted tabs are not con- verted.) set titlecolor [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor Use this color combination for the title bar. Valid names for the foreground and background colors are: red, green, blue, magenta, yellow, cyan, white, and black. Each of these eight names may be prefixed with the word light to get a brighter version of that color. The word grey or gray may be used as a synonym for lightblack. On a Linux console, light does not have any effect for a background color. On terminal emulators that can do at least 256 colors, other valid (but unprefixable) color names are: pink, purple, mauve, lagoon, mint, lime, peach, orange, latte, rosy, beet, plum, sea, sky, slate, teal, sage, brown, ocher, sand, tawny, brick, crimson, and normal -- where normal means the default foreground or background color. On such emulators, the color may also be speci- fied as a three-digit hexadecimal number prefixed with #, with the digits representing the amounts of red, green, and blue, respec- tively. This tells nano to select from the available palette the color that approximates the given values. Either "fgcolor" or ",bgcolor" may be left out, and the pair may be preceded by bold and/or italic (separated by commas) to get a bold and/or slanting typeface, if your terminal can do those. set trimblanks Remove trailing whitespace from wrapped lines when automatic hard- wrapping occurs or when text is justified. set unix Save a file by default in Unix format. This overrides nano's de- fault behavior of saving a file in the format that it had. (This option has no effect when you also use set noconvert.) set whitespace "characters" Set the two characters used to indicate the presence of tabs and spaces. They must be single-column characters. The default pair for a UTF-8 locale is ">>.", and for other locales ">.". set wordbounds Detect word boundaries differently by treating punctuation charac- ters as parts of words. set wordchars "characters" Specify which other characters (besides the normal alphanumeric ones) should be considered as parts of words. When using this op- tion, you probably want to unset wordbounds. set zap Let an unmodified Backspace or Delete erase the marked region (in- stead of a single character, and without affecting the cutbuffer). set zero Hide all elements of the interface (title bar, status bar, and help lines) and use all rows of the terminal for showing the contents of the buffer. The status bar appears only when there is a significant message, and disappears after 1.5 seconds or upon the next key- stroke. With M-Z the title bar plus status bar can be toggled. With M-X the help lines. SYNTAX HIGHLIGHTING Coloring the different syntactic elements of a file is done via regular expressions (see the color command below). This is inherently imper- fect, because regular expressions are not powerful enough to fully parse a file. Nevertheless, regular expressions can do a lot and are easy to make, so they are a good fit for a small editor like nano. All regular expressions in nano are POSIX extended regular expressions. This means that ., ?, *, +, ^, $, and several other characters are spe- cial. The period . matches any single character, ? means the preceding item is optional, * means the preceding item may be matched zero or more times, + means the preceding item must be matched one or more times, ^ matches the beginning of a line, and $ the end, \< matches the start of a word, and \> the end, and \s matches a blank. It also means that lookahead and lookbehind are not possible. A complete explanation can be found in the manual page of GNU grep: man grep. Each regular expression in a nanorc file should be wrapped in double quotes (""). Multiple regular expressions can follow each other on a line by separating them with blanks. This means that a regular expres- sion cannot contain a double quote followed by a blank. When you need this combination inside a regular expression, then either the double quote or the blank should be put between square brackets ([]). For each kind of file a separate syntax can be defined via the follow- ing commands: syntax name ["fileregex" ...] Start the definition of a syntax with this name. All subsequent color and other such commands are added to this syntax, until a new syntax command is encountered. When nano is run, this syntax is automatically activated (for the relevant buffer) if the absolute filename matches the ex- tended regular expression fileregex. Or the syntax can be ex- plicitly activated (for all buffers) by using the -Y or --syntax command-line option followed by the name. The syntax default is special: it takes no fileregex, and ap- plies to files that don't match any syntax's regexes. The syn- tax none is reserved; specifying it on the command line is the same as not having a syntax at all. header "regex" ... If from all defined syntaxes no fileregex matched, then compare this regex (or regexes) against the first line of the current file, to determine whether this syntax should be used for it. magic "regex" ... If no fileregex matched and no header regex matched either, then compare this regex (or regexes) against the result of querying the magic database about the current file, to determine whether this syntax should be used for it. (This querying is done only when libmagic is actually installed on the system and --magic or set magic was given.) formatter program [argument ...] Run the given program on the full contents of the current buffer. linter program [argument ...] Use the given program to run a syntax check on the current buffer. comment "string" Use the given string for commenting and uncommenting lines. If the string contains a vertical bar or pipe character (|), this designates bracket-style comments; for example, "/*|*/" for CSS files. The characters before the pipe are prepended to the line and the characters after the pipe are appended at the end of the line. If no pipe character is present, the full string is prepended; for example, "#" for Python files. If empty double quotes are specified, the comment/uncomment function is dis- abled; for example, "" for JSON. The default value is "#". tabgives "string" Make the <Tab> key produce the given string. Useful for lan- guages like Python that want to see only spaces for indentation. This overrides the setting of the tabstospaces option. color [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor "regex" ... Paint all pieces of text that match the extended regular expres- sion regex with the given foreground and background colors, at least one of which must be specified. Valid color names are: red, green, blue, magenta, yellow, cyan, white, and black. Each of these eight names may be prefixed with the word light to get a brighter version of that color. The word grey or gray may be used as a synonym for lightblack. On a Linux console, light does not have any effect for a background color. On terminal emulators that can do at least 256 colors, other valid (but un- prefixable) color names are: pink, purple, mauve, lagoon, mint, lime, peach, orange, latte, rosy, beet, plum, sea, sky, slate, teal, sage, brown, ocher, sand, tawny, brick, crimson, and normal -- where normal means the default foreground or back- ground color. On such emulators, the color may also be speci- fied as a three-digit hexadecimal number prefixed with #, with the digits representing the amounts of red, green, and blue, re- spectively. This tells nano to select from the available palette the color that approximates the given values. The color pair may be preceded by bold and/or italic (separated by commas) to get a bold and/or slanting typeface, if your ter- minal can do those. All coloring commands are applied in the order in which they are specified, which means that later commands can recolor stuff that was colored earlier. icolor [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor "regex" ... Same as above, except that the matching is case insensitive. color [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor start="fromrx" end="torx" Paint all pieces of text whose start matches extended regular expression fromrx and whose end matches extended regular expres- sion torx with the given foreground and background colors, at least one of which must be specified. This means that, after an initial instance of fromrx, all text until the first instance of torx is colored. This allows syntax highlighting to span multi- ple lines. icolor [bold,][italic,]fgcolor,bgcolor start="fromrx" end="torx" Same as above, except that the matching is case insensitive. include "syntaxfile" Read in self-contained color syntaxes from syntaxfile. Note that syntaxfile may contain only the above commands, from syntax to icolor. extendsyntax name command argument ... Extend the syntax previously defined as name with another command. This allows adding a new color, icolor, header, magic, formatter, linter, comment, or tabgives command to an already defined syntax -- useful when you want to slightly improve a syntax defined in one of the system-installed files (which nor- mally are not writable). REBINDING KEYS Key bindings can be changed via the following three commands: bind key function menu Rebinds the given key to the given function in the given menu (or in all menus where the function exists when all is used). bind key "string" menu Makes the given key produce the given string in the given menu (or in all menus where the key exists when all is used). Besides literal text and/or control codes, the string may contain function names between braces. These functions are invoked when the key is typed. To include a literal opening brace, use {{}. unbind key menu Unbinds the given key from the given menu (or from all menus where the key exists when all is used). Note that bind key "{function}" menu is equivalent to bind key function menu, except that for the latter form nano checks the availability of the function in the given menu at startup time (and reports an error if it does not exist there), whereas for the first form nano checks at ex- ecution time that the function exists but not whether it makes any sense in the current menu. The user has to take care that a function name between braces (or any sequence of them) is appropriate. Strange behavior or even a crash can result when the braced name is unfitting. The format of key should be one of: ^X where X is a Latin letter, or one of several ASCII characters (@, ], \, ^, _), or the word "Space". Example: ^C. M-X where X is any ASCII character except [, or the word "Space". Example: M-8. Sh-M-X where X is a Latin letter. Example: Sh-M-U. By default, each Meta+letter keystroke does the same as the corresponding Shift+Meta+letter. But when any Shift+Meta bind is made, that will no longer be the case, for all letters. FN where N is a numeric value from 1 to 24. Example: F10. (Of- ten, F13 to F24 can be typed as F1 to F12 with Shift.) Ins or Del. Rebinding ^M (Enter) or ^I (Tab) is probably not a good idea. Rebind- ing ^[ (Esc) is not possible, because its keycode is the starter byte of Meta keystrokes and escape sequences. Rebinding any of the dedi- cated cursor-moving keys (the arrows, Home, End, PageUp and PageDown) is not possible. On some terminals it's not possible to rebind ^H (un- less --raw is used) because its keycode is identical to that of the Backspace key. Valid function names to be bound are: help Invokes the help viewer. cancel Cancels the current command. exit Exits from the program (or from the help viewer or file browser). writeout Writes the current buffer to disk, asking for a name. savefile Writes the current file to disk without prompting. insert Inserts a file into the current buffer (at the current cursor po- sition), or into a new buffer when option multibuffer is set. whereis Starts a forward search for text in the current buffer -- or for filenames matching a string in the current list in the file browser. wherewas Starts a backward search for text in the current buffer -- or for filenames matching a string in the current list in the file browser. findprevious Searches the next occurrence in the backward direction. findnext Searches the next occurrence in the forward direction. replace Interactively replaces text within the current buffer. cut Cuts and stores the current line (or the marked region). copy Copies the current line (or the marked region) without deleting it. paste Pastes the currently stored text into the current buffer at the current cursor position. zap Throws away the current line (or the marked region). (This func- tion is bound by default to <Meta+Delete>.) chopwordleft Deletes from the cursor position to the beginning of the preceding word. (This function is bound by default to <Shift+Ctrl+Delete>. If your terminal produces ^H for <Ctrl+Backspace>, you can make <Ctrl+Backspace> delete the word to the left of the cursor by re- binding ^H to this function.) chopwordright Deletes from the cursor position to the beginning of the next word. (This function is bound by default to <Ctrl+Delete>.) cutrestoffile Cuts all text from the cursor position till the end of the buffer. mark Sets the mark at the current position, to start selecting text. Or, when it is set, unsets the mark. location Reports the current position of the cursor in the buffer: the line, column, and character positions. wordcount Counts and reports on the status bar the number of lines, words, and characters in the current buffer (or in the marked region). execute Prompts for a program to execute. The program's output is in- serted into the current buffer -- or into a new buffer when M-F is toggled. When the program's name is preceded by a pipe symbol (|), then the current buffer (or the marked region) is piped to the program, and the output of the program replaces the buffer (or the marked region). speller Invokes a spell-checking program, either the default hunspell(1) or GNU spell(1), or the one defined by --speller or set speller. formatter Invokes a full-buffer-processing program (if the active syntax de- fines one). (The current buffer is written out to a temporary file, the program is run on it, and then the temporary file is read back in, replacing the contents of the buffer.) linter Invokes a syntax-checking program (if the active syntax defines one). If this program produces lines of the form "file- name:linenum:charnum: some message", then the cursor is put at the indicated position in the mentioned file while showing "some mes- sage" on the status bar. You can move from message to message with <PgUp> and <PgDn>, and leave linting mode with ^C or <Enter>. justify Justifies the current paragraph (or the marked region). A para- graph is a group of contiguous lines that, apart from possibly the first line, all have the same indentation. The beginning of a paragraph is detected by either this lone line with a differing indentation or by a preceding blank line. fulljustify Justifies the entire current buffer (or the marked region). indent Indents (shifts to the right) the current line or the marked lines. unindent Unindents (shifts to the left) the current line or the marked lines. comment Comments or uncomments the current line or the marked lines, using the comment style specified in the active syntax. complete Completes (when possible) the fragment before the cursor to a full word found elsewhere in the current buffer. left Goes left one position (in the editor or browser). right Goes right one position (in the editor or browser). up Goes one line up (in the editor or browser). down Goes one line down (in the editor or browser). scrollup Scrolls the viewport up one row (meaning that the text slides down) while keeping the cursor in the same text position, if pos- sible. (This function is bound by default to <Alt+Up>. If <Alt+Up> does nothing on your Linux console, see the FAQ: <https://nano-editor.org/dist/latest/faq.html#4.1>.) scrolldown Scrolls the viewport down one row (meaning that the text slides up) while keeping the cursor in the same text position, if possi- ble. (This function is bound by default to <Alt+Down>.) center Scrolls the line with the cursor to the middle of the viewport. cycle Scrolls the line with the cursor first to the middle of the view- port, then to the top, then to the bottom. prevword Moves the cursor to the beginning of the previous word. nextword Moves the cursor to the beginning of the next word. home Moves the cursor to the beginning of the current line. end Moves the cursor to the end of the current line. beginpara Moves the cursor to the beginning of the current paragraph. endpara Moves the cursor to the end of the current paragraph. prevblock Moves the cursor to the beginning of the current or preceding block of text. (Blocks are separated by one or more blank lines.) nextblock Moves the cursor to the beginning of the next block of text. toprow Moves the cursor to the first row in the viewport. bottomrow Moves the cursor to the last row in the viewport. pageup Goes up one screenful. pagedown Goes down one screenful. firstline Goes to the first line of the file. lastline Goes to the last line of the file. gotoline Goes to a specific line (and column if given). A negative number counts from the end of the buffer (and end of the line). Putting ++ or -- before the first number will jump the given number of lines forward or backward. findbracket Moves the cursor to the bracket (or brace or parenthesis, etc.) that matches (pairs) with the one under the cursor. See set matchbrackets. anchor Places an anchor at the current line, or removes it when already present. (An anchor is visible when line numbers are activated.) prevanchor Goes to the first anchor before the current line. nextanchor Goes to the first anchor after the current line. prevbuf Switches to editing/viewing the previous buffer when multiple buffers are open. nextbuf Switches to editing/viewing the next buffer when multiple buffers are open. verbatim Inserts the next keystroke verbatim into the file, or begins Uni- code input when a hexadecimal digit is typed. tab Inserts a tab at the current cursor location. enter Inserts a new line below the current one. delete Deletes the character under the cursor. backspace Deletes the character before the cursor. recordmacro Starts the recording of keystrokes -- the keystrokes are stored as a macro. When already recording, the recording is stopped. runmacro Replays the keystrokes of the last recorded macro. undo Undoes the last performed text action (add text, delete text, etc). redo Redoes the last undone action (i.e., it undoes an undo). refresh Refreshes the screen. suspend Suspends the editor and returns control to the shell (until you tell the process to resume execution with fg). casesens Toggles whether searching/replacing ignores or respects the case of the given characters. regexp Toggles whether searching/replacing uses literal strings or regu- lar expressions. backwards Toggles whether searching/replacing goes forward or backward. older Retrieves the previous (earlier) entry at a prompt. newer Retrieves the next (later) entry at a prompt. flipreplace Toggles between searching for something and replacing something. flipgoto Toggles between searching for text and targeting a line number. flipexecute Switches from inserting a file to executing a command. flippipe When executing a command, toggles whether the current buffer (or marked region) is piped to the command. flipnewbuffer Toggles between inserting into the current buffer and into a new empty buffer. flipconvert When reading in a file, toggles between converting and not con- verting it from DOS/Mac format. Converting is the default. dosformat When writing a file, switches to writing a DOS format (CR/LF). macformat When writing a file, switches to writing a Mac format. append When writing a file, appends to the end instead of overwriting. prepend When writing a file, "prepends" (writes at the beginning) instead of overwriting. backup When writing a file, creates a backup of the current file. discardbuffer Discards the current buffer without saving (when in the Write Out menu). When it was the last buffer, then nano exits with error status 2. browser Starts the file browser (in the Read File and Write Out menus), allowing to select a file from a list. gotodir Goes to a directory to be specified, allowing to browse anywhere in the filesystem. firstfile Goes to the first file in the list when using the file browser. lastfile Goes to the last file in the list when using the file browser. nohelp Toggles the presence of the two-line list of key bindings at the bottom of the screen. (This toggle is special: it is available in all menus except the help viewer and the linter. All further tog- gles are available in the main menu only.) zero Toggles the presence of title bar and status bar. constantshow Toggles the constant reporting (on the status bar) of the current line, column, and character positions. softwrap Toggles the displaying of overlong lines on multiple screen lines. linenumbers Toggles the display of line numbers in front of the text. whitespacedisplay Toggles the showing of whitespace. nosyntax Toggles syntax highlighting. smarthome Toggles the smartness of the Home key. autoindent Toggles whether a newly created line will contain the same amount of leading whitespace as the preceding line -- or as the next line if the preceding line is the beginning of a paragraph. cutfromcursor Toggles whether cutting text cuts the whole line or just from the current cursor position to the end of the line. breaklonglines Toggles whether the overlong part of a line is hard-wrapped to the next line. tabstospaces Toggles whether typed tabs are converted to spaces. mouse Toggles mouse support. Valid menu sections are: main The main editor window where text is entered and edited. help The help-viewer menu. search The search menu (AKA whereis). replace The 'search to replace' menu. replacewith The 'replace with' menu, which comes up after 'search to replace'. yesno The 'yesno' menu, where the Yes/No/All/Cancel question is asked. gotoline The 'goto line (and column)' menu. writeout The 'write file' menu. insert The 'insert file' menu. browser The 'file browser' menu, for selecting a file to be opened or in- serted or written to. whereisfile The 'search for a file' menu in the file browser. gotodir The 'go to directory' menu in the file browser. execute The menu for inserting the output from an external command, or for filtering the buffer (or the marked region) through an external command, or for executing one of several tools. spell The menu of the integrated spell checker where the user can edit a misspelled word. linter The linter menu, which allows jumping through the linting mes- sages. all A special name that encompasses all menus. For bind it means all menus where the specified function exists; for unbind it means all menus where the specified key exists. EXAMPLES To make Ctrl+Z suspend nano: bind ^Z suspend main To make Shift+Alt+C copy the marked region to the system's clipboard: bind Sh-M-C "{execute}| xsel -ib {enter}{undo}" main FILES /etc/nanorc System-wide configuration file. ~/.nanorc or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/nano/nanorc or ~/.config/nano/nanorc Per-user configuration file. /usr/share/nano/* Syntax definitions for the syntax coloring of common file types (and for less common file types in the extra/ subdirectory). SEE ALSO nano(1) https://nano-editor.org/cheatsheet.html An overview of the default key bindings. February 2026 version 8.7.1 NANORC(5)
NAME | DESCRIPTION | NOTICE | OPTIONS | SYNTAX HIGHLIGHTING | REBINDING KEYS | EXAMPLES | FILES | SEE ALSO
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