# &kate; User's Manual

`kate`

1

`kate`

Advanced text editor by &kde;

    kate
    -s, --start
    name
    --startanon
    -n, --new
    -b, --block
    -p, --pid
    pid
    -e, --encoding
    name
    -l, --line
    line
    -c, --column
     column
    -i, --stdin
    --tempfile
    file

## Description

&kate; is the &kde; Advanced Text Editor.

&kate; also provides the editor part for various applications, under the name &kwrite;.

Some of &kate;'s many features include configurable syntax highlighting for languages ranging from C and C++ to &HTML; to bash scripts, the ability to create and maintain projects, a multiple document interface (MDI), and a self-contained terminal emulator.

But &kate; is more than a programmer's editor. Its ability to open several files at once makes it ideal for editing &UNIX;'s many configuration files. This document was written in &kate;.

## Options

`-s`, `--start` `name`

- Start &kate; with a given session.

`--startanon`

- Start &kate; with a new anonymous session, implies `-n`.

`-n`, `--new`

- Force start of a new &kate; instance (is ignored if `start` is used and another &kate; instance already has the given session opened), forced if no parameters and no URLs are given at all.

`-b`, `--block`

- If using an already running &kate; instance, block until it exits, if URLs given to open.

`-p, --pid` `pid`

- Only try to reuse kate instance with this `pid` (is ignored if `start` is used and another &kate; instance already has the given session opened).

`-e, --encoding` `name`

- Set encoding for the file to open.

  You can use this to force a file opened in utf-8 format, for instance. (The command `iconv -l` provides a list of encodings, which may be helpful to you.)

`-l, --line` `line`

- Navigate to this line.

`-c, --column` `column`

- Navigate to this column.

`-i, --stdin`

- Read the contents of `stdin`.

`--tempfile`

- The files/&URL;s opened by the application will be deleted after use.

``file``

- File to open.

## See Also

- More detailed user documentation is available from help:/kate (either enter this &URL; into &konqueror;, or run ``khelpcenter` `help:/kate``).
- kf6options(7)
- qt6options(7)
- There is also further information available at the &kate; website.

## Examples

To open a file named `source.cpp` at column 15, line 25, in an existing &kate; window, you could use:

    kate -c 15 -l 25 source.cpp

If you have an active internet connection, you can take advantage of &kde;'s network transparency to open a file from an &FTP; site. If you do not have write permission on the remote server, the file will be opened read only and you will be prompted for a local filename to save to if you make changes. If you do have write permission, changes will be saved transparently over the network.

    kate &kde-ftp;README

## Authors

The maintainer of &kate; is &Christoph.Cullmann; &Christoph.Cullmann.mail;. A comprehensive list of authors and contributors is available in the complete user manual mentioned above.