PICO TEXT EDITOR COMMANDS

Startup

  1. Login to Hercules or Crux, whichever you are assigned.
  2. At the prompt type "pico".
*Commands in Pico require the use of the control key.

Help

  • Ctrl-g : Displays help text for using Pico
  • Ctrl-x : Exits Pico help

Cursor Movement

  • Ctrl-b : Moves back one character
  • Ctrl-f : Moves forward one character
  • Ctrl-p : Moves to previous line
  • Ctrl-n : Moves to next line
  • Ctrl-a : Moves to the beginning of the line
  • Ctrl-e : Moves to end of the line

Delete, Copy, & Move Text

  • Ctrl-d: Deletes a character
  • Ctrl-h: Deletes previous character
  • Ctrl-k: Deletes (kills) a line
  • Ctrl-u: Undeletes (pastes) lines deleted with Ctrl-k
  • Ctrl-r: Reads existing text into the current file
  • Ctrl-j: Justifies a paragraph

Other Control Commands

  • Ctrl-c: Cancels message
  • Ctrl-t: Checks spelling
  • Ctrl-v: Goes forward one page
  • Ctrl-y: Goes back one page

Save & Quit

  • Ctrl-w: Saves changes
  • Ctrl-x: Quits Pico

Printing a File

To print a file from a classroom PC:
  • On the UNIX command line, type lp filename (filename will be the name of the file you want to print).
  • Press Return.
Note: From the classroom this will print to the default printer selected from the UNIX Printer Menu.

To print a file at home:

  • Select text on screen with your mouse (highlight all you want).
  • From the Edit menu of the Telnet window, select Copy.
  • Enter Notepad (if in Windows 3.x) or Wordpad (if in Windows 95) or any other Windows text editor
  • Paste into Notepad (or Wordpad, or other).
  • Print as you normally would in your text editor.