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Nano is the beginner-friendly text editor on your VPS. If you can only remember two shortcuts, remember Ctrl+O (save) and Ctrl+X (exit). In nano’s help bar, ^ means the Ctrl key and M- means the Alt (meta) key.

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Open a file

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The essential shortcuts

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Selecting and copying

  1. Move the cursor to the start of the selection.
  2. Press Ctrl+^ (or Alt+A) to mark the start.
  3. Move the cursor to the end of the selection.
  4. Press Alt+6 to copy, or Ctrl+K to cut.
  5. Move to where you want to paste, press Ctrl+U.

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Undo and redo

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Common workflows

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Save and exit

  1. Ctrl+O
  2. Enter (to confirm filename)
  3. Ctrl+X
Or just Ctrl+X, then Y, then Enter. Nano will prompt to save on the way out.

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Exit without saving

  1. Ctrl+X
  2. N (do not save)

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Search for text

  1. Ctrl+W
  2. Type the search string, press Enter.
  3. Alt+W finds the next match.

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Find and replace

  1. Ctrl+\
  2. Type the search string, press Enter.
  3. Type the replacement, press Enter.
  4. Y for each match to replace, A to replace all.
If you paste into nano from your local clipboard and see indentation exploding, run Alt+I to disable auto-indent, then paste again.