mjhjmtu

When editing an authorised_keys file in Nano, I want to wrap long lines so that I can see the end of the lines (i.e tell whose key it is). Essentially I want it to look like the output of cat authorised_keys

So, I hit Esc + L which is the meta key for enabling long line wrapping on my platform and I see the message to say long line wrapping has been enabled but the lines do not wrap as I expect.

I'm using Terminal on OSX 10.8.5

To see the word wrapping you are expecting, use Esc+$.



This is called "soft wrapping." The L operator you used is called "hard wrapping."

If you are a new user to nano, note that the notation Esc+$ does not mean hold down escape while pressing $. It means press and release Esc and then press $. The full key press sequence would Esc+Shift+4.

Further, and especially if you are a new user to nano, be careful of softwrap! If you are editing a configuration file, code or something that is sensitive to newlines and/or indents, I suggest making sure "soft" line wrapping is off in those cases.

Source: https://www.nano-editor.org/dist/v2.9/nano.html (search for --softwrap)

Just searched for nano line wrapping and this came high in results, so I'll post my findings for GNU nano 2.2.6 on the Raspberry Pi, Raspbian GNU/Linux 7: Esc+L gave me the same message; but for the line wrapping to take effect I had to modify the line. As soon as I typed another character on the long line, wrapping kicked in.

I'm reading the replies here and need to set this straight!

Nano supports two different forms of line wrapping, and it can be essential to know the difference!

First, the Meta key below is often the Alt key, but not necessarily.

• 
  Soft line wrapping is activated with Meta-$. Wraps lines without inserting line break characters into the file. That is, the effect is purely visual.


• 
  Hard line wrapping is activated with Meta-L. Wraps lines by inserting line breaks into the file. The file is physically changed.

So if you activate it in a file where wraps are meaningful (configuration files, programming languages, scripts), you basically never want the hard line wraps or it'll change the meaning of the code.

Also, you'd have found these shortcuts with ^G (i.e. Ctrl-G) in Nano.

Setting a short alias for your nano editor also works well.
I normally use:

 alias e='nano -$cwS'
 alias se='sudo nano -$cwS'

(Set these in ~/.bashrc (or .bash_aliases on some systems) or your favorite shell startup)

Flags/Options used:

$ = Enable soft-wrapping of lines (escaped using backslash)
c = Show constant cursor position (at bottom)
w = Disable any 'hard wrapping'
S = Smooth scrolling

And (as already mentioned) once in editor, use Esc, $ to toggle soft-wrapping ON/OFF.

Mac users be advised the version of Nano shipped with High Sierra (v2.0.6) or earlier doesn't support soft line wrapping as described here. You'll get an unknown command error. v2.2 is the earliest version with mention of soft wrap in the man pages. So don't spend an hour trying all these solutions like I did.

Esc+L does work as expected.

Open the nanorc generally at ~/.nanorc or /etc/nanorc, comment out the line

set nowrap

And uncomment line

set softwrap

Hope it helps.