PICO Commands

PICO Commands

The bottom two lines of your PICO editing screen list the available editing commands. Each character typed is automatically inserted into the file at the current cursor position.

Editing commands and curser movement (besides arrow keys) are given to pico by typing special control- key sequences. A caret (^), is used to denote the control key, sometimes marked "CTRL", so the CTRL-q key combination is written as ^Q.

 

For the Command
Press
In order to
Backward ^B Move Backward a character
Beginning of Line ^A Move to the beginning of the current line
Block ^^ (Ctrl-^
press Ctrl-Shift-6 for this command)
Mark cursor position as beginning of selected text
Cut Block ^K Cut selected text Note: The selected text's boundary on the cursor side ends at the left edge of the cursor. So, with selected text to the left of the cursor, the character under the cursor is not selected.
Cursor Position ^C Report current cursor position
Delete Char ^D Delete the character at the cursor position
End of Line ^E Move to the end of the current line
Exit ^X Exit Pico, saving buffer
Forward ^F Move Forward a character
Help ^G Display a list of help text
Insert TAB ^I Insert a tab at the current cursor position.
Justify ^J Justify the current paragraph. Note: paragraphs delimited by blank lines or indentation
Next Line ^N Move to the Next line
Page down ^Y Move backward a page of text
Page up ^V Move forward a page of text
Paste Block (Uncut) ^U Uncut (paste) last cut text inserting it at the current cursor position
Previous Line ^P Move to the Previous line
Read in an external file ^R Insert an external file at the current cursor position
Redraw Screen ^L Refresh the display
Spell Check ^T Invoke the spell checker
Where is (Search) ^W Search for (Where is) text, neglecting case
Write Out to an external file ^O Output the current buffer to a file, saving it