nano Quick Reference

Switches/Options

Jumping around the file

Go to line and column

+LINE,COLUMN
Go to line 12, column 2
+12,2

Smart home: make the home key jump to the first charactor of the line that isn't whitespace.

-A

Scroll line by line, not chunk by chunk

-S

File handling

Backup this file when saved with ~ prefixed.

-B

Used with

-B
, change the directory of where the backuped file should do.

-C directory

Keyboard/mouse mods

When numpad keys don't work, this makes them work. However, it might break mouse functions.

-K

When your delete and backspace key aren't working properly, this will make them work.

-d

Enable the mouse, so you can click on the screen to set the pointer. Don't use with -K.

-m

Appearence

Remove the blank line below the title bar

-O

Disable the help at the bottom of the screen.

-x

Editing behaviour

Automatically indent to the same intent position as you currently are when dropping down to a new line.

-i

Fix the word bounds, including trialing punctuation as part of the word.

-W

Don't wrap long lines. Use this... most of the time.

-w