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Dynamic word wrap in nano

Asked by oddemirci

Do you know if "nano" has dynamic word wrap capability? I mean, when you open a document, can it automatically wrap at the screen width? In man pages, it is talking about -r option but it does not seem to be working.

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George Standish (george-standish-deactivatedaccount) said : 		#1

Yes, it took some experimentation and help from erUSUL in #ubuntu for me to figure this out.

You need to edit the file /etc/nanorc with elevated privileges, like "gksu gedit /etc/nanorc"

Find the line:

   #set softwrap

and remove the comment (#) from the beginning of the line so it looks like:

   set softwrap

Then you should have dynamic wrapping of text instead of lines showing $ when they reach the end of the terminal

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oddemirci (oddemirci) said : 		#2

Hi

In that file there is no such line. If I insert such a line, when nano starts it gives error

     Error in /etc/nanorc on line 95: Unknown flag "softwrap"

But there is a line like this

     set nowrap

I commented it out. Now nano is wrapping text. But it is not "dynamic wrap" in the sense that, when I change window size, it does not adjust lines.

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oddemirci (oddemirci) said : 		#3

Sorry I closed the question unintentionally.

(Let this question remain open until a clear answer. I could not find answer on the web, and this may be relevant to other people also.)

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George Standish (george-standish-deactivatedaccount) said : 		#4

Perhaps we are using different versions of Nano - my machine is running Lucid, so it very possible we are (GNU nano version 2.2.2).

On my system the "set nowrap" had no effect at all - still had the $ at end of terminal lines.

With the "set softwrap" I am getting dynamic wrap changes, ie when I change the terminal size the lines auto-adjust - too bad it is not available in the nano version you are using.

I'm sorry you could only partially resolve your issue, best of luck.

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oddemirci (oddemirci) said : 		#5

Hello George,

Your answer actually clarified the issue. I think it is a matter with different versions. I am using nano version 2.0.0.

I am using latest Ubuntu release with all updates. May be Ubuntu guys did not put the latest version yet.

Anyway. Thank you for the reply.

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sdaau (sd-imi) said : 		#6

Just a note about shortcuts: once in nano, hit Ctrl-G (that is "^G Get Help"); then on the very bottom of that page, you can see:

  (M-$) Soft line wrapping enable/disable

... and given "M" here stands for Alt key, you should press Alt-$ (dollar) or rather Alt-Shift-4 to toggle the soft line wrapping.