The Nano Editor

The editor nano is a free editor available on all unix systems.

It is not as good as e.g. emacs, but it is an ok alternative if you must work on a remote machine and do not have the time to learning editors like emacs or vi.

To open it, open a terminal and write nano. To open a file called file.txt in nano, write nano file.txt.

The two bottom lines of the window then contain the basic commands ( ^G: means ctrl G, etc.):

^G Get Help  ^O WriteOut  ^R Read File  ^Y Prev Page  ^K Cut Text    ^C Cur Pos
^X Exit      ^J Justify   ^W Where Is   ^V Next Page  ^U UnCut Text  ^T To Spell

Pressing ctrl G gives a list of commands. The M in commands like M-T refers to the META key. On the Mac, you invoke the meta key by pressing the ESC key, and thereafter T (or whatever key is mentioned).

Useful commands when working with large files:

• M-G = Go to line number
• ^K = Remove the whole line (note: different from emacs and see)

To cut and paste text:

1. Press ^A key
2. Move to the end of the area you want to mark
3. Press ^K to cut
4. Move to where you want to paste it
5. Press ^U to paste

The command info nano contains some, well, info.