#Ubuntu text editor for free

Everything outside of that is just simple text-editing. The shortcuts work just like in GUI-based word processors like Word and Open Office, so it’s just a matter of learning which ones do what. The strength of nano lies in its simplicity of use. For more information, check out the Nano Project’s History section on their FAQ.

#Ubuntu text editor for free

“TIP Isn’t Pico” added some functionality that Pico lacked and was licensed for free distribution, and over time, became the nano we love to use today. This meant that redistribution was somewhat of a fuzzy area, and so the TIP project was born. Pico was the default text editor of Pine, an email program from back in the day that wasn’t distributed with a GPL-friendly license. Nano was designed to be similar in look and feel to another program called Pico. This will mark everything between the starting point up to and NOT including the cursor.Īnd after you get really comfortable, you can turn that helpful section at the bottom off by hitting Meta+X to get more screen space for editing! You simply move the cursor to where you want to start marking, and then you hit Ctrl+^ to “set” it. Similarly, in nano we “mark” it by using the Ctrl+^ command. When we want to copy text in graphical environment, we highlight it with the cursor. If you want to see where your cursor currently is, sort of like nano-GPS, hit Ctrl+C. And, if you’re really in a rush, you can hit Ctrl+_ and then type in the line number, a comma, and the column number to jump straight there. Want to move pages at a time instead? Ctrl+V moves down a page, and Ctrl+Y moves up a page.īut wait, there’s more! To move forward and backward one word at a time, you can use Ctrl+Space and Meta+Space (remember, that’s Alt+Space). Missing the Home and End keys? You can use Ctrl+A and Ctrl+E. In other words, you can use those keys instead of the Right, Left, Up, and Down arrows, respectively. To move up and down one line at a time, you can type Ctrl+P and Ctrl+N. To move the cursor forward or backward, you can type Ctrl+F and Ctrl+B. All shortcuts use lowercase letters and unmodified number keys, so Ctrl+G is NOT Ctrl+Shift+G. Note that nano does not use the Shift key in shortcuts. The most common ones are listed at the bottom of the screen, but there are many more that aren’t. Program functions are referred to as “shortcuts” in nano, such as saving, quitting, justifying, etc. It’s pretty simple, so type some text out, or copy something and paste it into your terminal so we have something to play with. It’s a WYSIWYG editor “what you see is what you get.” What you type directly goes into the text input, unless you modify it with a key like Control or Meta. Here, you can see that it says “New File.” Lastly, the final two rows at the bottom are what make this program very user-friendly: the shortcut lines. The third-line from the bottom is a “system message” line that displays information relevant to the program executing a function. If you have a new file that isn’t saved yet, you’ll see “New Buffer.” Next, you’ll see the contents of your document, a body of text. Let’s take a look at the default nano screen.Īt the top, you’ll see the name of the program and version number, the name of the file you’re editing, and whether the file has been modified since it was last saved. If it does not exist, it’ll start a new buffer with that filename in that directory. Nano will follow the path and open that file if it exists.