Configure
Selecting Settings Configure Application... from the menu brings up the Configure dialog box. This dialog can be used to alter a number of different settings. The settings available for change vary according to which category the user chooses from a vertical list on the left side of the dialog. By means of three buttons along the bottom of the box the user can control the process.
You may invoke the Help system, accept the current settings and close the dialog by means of the OK button, or Cancel the process. The categories Appearance, Fonts & Colors, Editing, Open/Save and Extensions are detailed below.

The Editor Component Configuration
This group contains all pages related to the editor component of . Most of the settings here are defaults, they can be overridden by defining a filetype, by Document Variables or by changing them per document during an editing session.

Appearance

General
Editor font 	 Here you can choose the font of the editor text. You can choose from any font available on your system, and set a default size. A sample text is displayed at the bottom of the dialog, so you can see the effect of your choices.
For more information about selecting a font, see the Choosing Fonts section of the Fundamentals documentation.
Show whitespace indicators 	
Never 	The editor will never display dots to indicate the presence of whitespace.
At the end of a line 	The editor will display dots to indicate the presence of extra whitespace at the end of lines.
Always 	The editor will always display dots to indicate the presence of whitespace.
Whitespace indicator size 	Use the slider to change the size of the visible indicator marker.
Show tab indicators 	When checked the editor will display a » symbol to indicate the presence of a tab in the text.
Show focus frame around editor 	When checked the editor shows focus frame around the main source text control.
Bracket matching 	
Highlight range between selected brackets 	If this is enabled, the range between the selected matching brackets will be highlighted.
Show preview of matching open bracket 	When enabled, the editor will show a tooltip of the matching open bracket.
Flash matching bracket when cursor moves to other bracket in pair 	If enabled, moving on the brackets ({, [, ], },( or )) will quickly flash the matching bracket.
Show indentation lines 	If this is checked, the editor will display vertical lines to help identifying indent lines.
Counts 	
Show word count 	Displays the number of words and characters in the document and in the current selection in the status bar. This option is also available in the status bar context menu.
Show line count 	Displays the number of total lines in the document in the status bar. This option is also available in the status bar context menu.
Fold first line 	If enabled, the first line is folded, if possible. This is useful, if the file starts with a comment, such as a copyright
Dynamic Word Wrap 	 If this option is checked, the text lines will be wrapped at the view border on the screen.
Wrap dynamically at static word wrap marker 	When checked, editor wraps lines dynamically at the static word wrap position.
Disregard word boundaries for dynamic wrapping 	When checked, the editor does not take into account word boundaries when wrapping text lines.
Dynamic word wrap indicators 	Choose when the Dynamic word wrap indicators should be displayed, either Off, Follow Line Numbers or Always on.
Indent wrapped lines 	Additionally, this allows you to set a maximum width of the screen, as a percentage, after which dynamically wrapped lines will no longer be vertically aligned. For example, at 50%, lines whose indentation levels are deeper than 50% of the width of the screen will not have vertical alignment applied to subsequent wrapped lines.
Line Height Multiplier 	This value will be multiplied by the font's default line height. A value of 1.0 means that the default height will be used.

Borders
Code block folding 	
Show arrows to collapse code blocks 	If this option is checked, the current view will display marks for code folding, if code folding is available.
Show preview of folded blocks on hover 	If checked, hovering over a folded region shows a preview of the folded text in a popup.
Folding arrows visibility 	Switch the folding arrows between Show on Hover and Show Always.
Left side 	
Show marks 	If this is checked, you will see an icon border on the left hand side. The icon border shows bookmark signs for instance.
Show line numbers 	If this is checked, you will see line numbers on the left hand side.
Highlight changed and unsaved lines 	If this is checked, line modification markers will be visible. For more information, see .
Scrollbars 	
Show marks 	If this option is checked the current view will show marks on the vertical scrollbar. These marks will for instance show bookmarks.
Show preview when hovering over scrollbar 	If this option is checked, and you hover the scrollbar with the mouse cursor a small text preview with several lines of the current document around the cursor position will be displayed. This allows you to quickly switch to another part of the document.
Minimap 	
Show minimap 	If this option is checked, every new view will show a minimap of the document on the vertical scrollbar.
For more information on the scrollbar minimap, see .
Minimap Width 	Adjusts the width of the scrollbar mini-map, defined in pixels.
Scrollbars visibility 	Switch the scrollbar on, off or show the scrollbar only when needed. Click with the on the blue rectangle to display the line number range of the document displayed on the screen. Keep the pressed outside the blue rectangle to automatically scroll through the document.
Sort bookmarks menu 	
By date created 	Each new bookmark will be added to the bottom, independently from where it is placed in the document.
By line number 	The bookmarks will be ordered by the line numbers they are placed at.

Color Themes
This section of the dialog lets you configure all colors in any color theme you have, and create new themes, delete existing ones or just Follow System Color Scheme. Each scheme has settings for colors and normal and highlighted text styles.
will preselect the currently active theme for you, if you want to work on a different theme start by selecting that from the Select theme combobox. With the Copy and Delete buttons you can create a new theme (copying an existing one) or delete existing ones.
This is described in detail in .

Editing

General
Word wrap 	 Word wrap is a feature that causes the editor to automatically start a new line of text and move (wrap) the cursor to the beginning of that new line. will automatically start a new line of text when the current line reaches the length specified by the Wrap words at: option.
Wrap words at a fixed column 	 Turns static word wrap on or off.
Draw vertical line at the word wrap column 	 If this option is checked, a vertical line will be drawn at the word wrap column as defined in the Settings Configure Editor... in the Editing tab. Please note that the word wrap marker is only drawn if you use a fixed pitch font.
Wrap words at: 	 If the Wrap words at a fixed column option is selected this entry determines the length (in characters) at which the editor will automatically start a new line.
Default input mode 	 The selected input mode will be enabled when opening a new view. You can still toggle the vi input mode on/off for a particular view in the Edit menu.
Brackets 	 If the Automatically close brackets when opening bracket is typed option is selected when the user types a left bracket ([, (, or {) automatically enters the right bracket (}, ), or ]) to the right of the cursor.
Enclosing characters 	 It is possible to select the enclosing characters using the corresponding drop-down list.
When text is selected, typing one of these characters wraps the selected text.
Copy and paste 	
Move selected text when dragged 	 This option enables drag-and-drop of the selected text inside the editor window.
Copy/cut the current line if invoked without any text selected 	 If this option is enabled and the text selection is empty, copy and cut action are performed for the line of text at the actual cursor position.
Don't move the text cursor when pasting by mouse 	 If this option is enabled and you paste some text in the editor window with the clicking, will not move the text cursor into the clicked position.

Text Navigation
Text Cursor Movement 	
Smart home and smart end 	 When selected, pressing the home key will cause the cursor to skip white space and go to the start of a line's text.
PageUp/PageDown moves cursor 	 This option changes the behavior of the cursor when the user presses the or key. If unselected the text cursor will maintain its relative position within the visible text in as new text becomes visible as a result of the operation. So if the cursor is in the middle of the visible text when the operation occurs it will remain there (except when one reaches the beginning or end.) With this option selected, the first key press will cause the cursor to move to either the top or bottom of the visible text as a new page of text is displayed.
Enable camel case cursor movement 	 This option changes the behavior of the cursor when the user presses the Left arrow or Right arrow shortcut. If unselected the text cursor jumps over the full words. With this option selected, the cursor jumps break at camel case humps.
Autocenter cursor: 	 Sets the number of lines to maintain visible above and below the cursor when possible.
Text Selection Mode 	
Normal 	 Selections will be overwritten by typed text and will be lost on cursor movement.
Persistent 	 Selections will stay even after cursor movement and typing.
Allow scrolling past the end of the document 	 This option lets you scroll past the end of the document. This can be used to vertically centre the bottom of the document, or put it on top of the current view.
Backspace key removes character’s base with its diacritics 	 When selected, composed characters are removed with their diacritics instead of only removing the base character. This is useful for Indic locales.
Multicursor modifier 	 This option lets you set the modifier that will be used to create multiple cursors with click. You need to press the modifiers and click to create a cursor at the desired location. See Creating multiple cursors to discover other ways to create multiple cursors.

Indentation
Default indentation mode: 	 Select the automatic indentation mode you want to use as default. It is strongly recommended to use None or Normal here, and use filetype configurations to set other indentation modes for text formats like C/C++ code or .
Indent using 	
Tabulators 	 When this is enabled the editor will insert tabulator characters when you press the key or use automatic indentation.
Spaces 	 When this is enabled the editor will insert a calculated number of spaces according to the position in the text and the tab-width setting when you press the key or use automatic indentation.
Tabulators and Spaces 	 When this is enabled, the editor will insert spaces as describe above when indenting or pressing at the beginning of a line, but insert tabulators when the key is pressed in the middle or end of a line.
Tab width: 	 This configures the number of spaces that are displayed in place of a tabulator character.
Indentation width: 	 The indentation width is the number of spaces which is used to indent a line. If configured to indent using tabulators, a tabulator character is inserted if the indentation is divisible by the tab width.
Indentation Properties 	
Keep extra spaces 	If this option is disabled, changing the indentation level aligns a line to a multiple of the width specified in Indentation width.
Adjust indentation of text pasted from the clipboard 	 If this option is selected, text pasted from the clipboard is indented. Triggering the Undo action removes the indentation.
Indentation Actions 	
Backspace key in leading blank space unindents 	 If this option is selected, the key decreases the indentation level if the cursor is located in the leading blank space of a line.
Tab key action (if no selection exists) 	 If you want to align the current line in the current code block like in , make a shortcut to the action Format Indentation.
Always advance to the next tab position 	 If this option is selected, the key always inserts white space so that the next tab position is reached. If the option Insert spaces instead of tabulators on the General tab in the Editing page is enabled, spaces are inserted; otherwise, a single tabulator is inserted.
Always increase indentation level 	 If this option is selected, the key always indents the current line by the number of character positions specified in Indentation width.
Increase indentation level if in leading blank space 	 If this option is selected, the key either indents the current line or advances to the next tab position. If the insertion point is at or before the first non-space character in the line, or if there is a selection, the current line is indented by the number of character positions specified in Indentation width. If the insertion point is located after the first non-space character in the line and there is no selection, white space is inserted so that the next tab position is reached: if the option Insert spaces instead of tabulators on the General tab in the Editing page is enabled, spaces are inserted; otherwise, a single tabulator is inserted.

Auto Completion
General 	
Enable auto completion 	 If enabled, a word completion box automatically pops up during typing showing a list of text entries to complete the current text under the cursor.
Auto select first completion entry 	 If enabled, the first auto completion item is always preselected so you can insert it with . If you do not want such behavior, ⪚ if you want pressing to only insert a newline, then disable this item.
Minimal word length to complete 	While typing text, the word completion searches for words in the document starting with the already typed text. This option configures the minimal amount of characters that are needed to make the word completion active and pop up a completion box.
Remove tail on complete 	Remove the tail of a previous word when the completion item is chosen from a list.
Keyword completion 	If enabled, the built-in autocompletion uses the keywords defined by the syntax highlighting.

Spellcheck
These configuration options are described in the documentation for the module Spell Checker.

Vi Input Mode
General 	
Let Vi commands override Kate shortcuts 	 When selected, Vi commands will override 's built-in commands. For example: R will redo, and override the standard action (showing the search and replace dialog).
Display relative line numbers 	if this is enabled, the current line always refers to line 0. Lines above and below increase the line number relatively.
Key Mapping 	 Key mapping is used to change the meaning of typed keys. This allows you to move commands to other keys or make special keypresses for doing a series of commands.
Example:
F2 -> I--
This will prepend I-- to a line when pressing F2.

Open/Save

General
File Format 	
Encoding 	 This defines the standard encoding to use to open/save files, if not changed in the open/save dialog or by using a command line option.
Encoding Detection 	 Select an item from the drop down box, either to disable autodetection or use Universal to enable autodetection for all encodings. But as this may probably only detect utf-8/utf-16, selecting a region will use custom heuristics for better results. If neither the encoding chosen as standard above, nor the encoding specified in the open/save dialog, nor the encoding specified on command line match the content of the file, this detection will be run.
Fallback Encoding 	 This defines the fallback encoding to try for opening files if neither the encoding chosen as standard above, nor the encoding specified in the open/ save dialog, nor the encoding specified on command line match the content of the file. Before this is used, an attempt will be made to determine the encoding to use by looking for a byte order mark at start of file: if one is found, the right unicode encoding will be chosen; otherwise encoding detection will run, if both fail fallback encoding will be tried.
End of line 	 Choose your preferred end of line mode for your active document. You have the choice between , DOS/ or Macintosh.
Automatic end of line detection 	 Check this if you want the editor to autodetect the end of line type. The first found end of line type will be used for the whole file.
Enable byte order mark (BOM) 	 The byte order mark is a special sequence at the beginning of unicode encoded documents. It helps editors to open text documents with the correct unicode encoding. For more information see Byte Order Mark.
Line Length Limit 	 Unfortunately, due to deficiencies in , experiences poor performance when working with extremely long lines. For that reason, will automatically wrap lines when they are longer than the number of characters specified here. To disable this, set this to 0.
Automatic Cleanups on Save 	
Remove trailing spaces 	 The editor will automatically eliminate extra spaces at the ends of lines of text while saving the file. You can select Never to disable this functionality, On Modified Lines to do so only on lines that you have modified since you last saved the document, or In Entire Document to remove them unconditionally from the entire document.
Append newline at end of file on save 	 The editor will automatically append a newline to the end of the file if one is not already present upon saving the file.
Enable Auto Save (local files only) 	 Check this if you want the editor to autosave documents while you are working on them.
Auto save document when focus leaves the editor 	 The editor will automatically save documents when you switch to something outside the editor, ⪚, the terminal panel in .
Auto save interval 	 You can determine the autosave interval in seconds here. If the interval is 0, the document will not be autosaved after intervals.

Advanced
Write a backup file on save for 	Backing up on save will cause to copy the disk file (the previously saved version of the file) to <prefix><filename><suffix> before saving the new changes. A backup file can help you recover work if something goes wrong while saving or if you later want to recover the previous version of the file. The suffix defaults to ~ and prefix is empty by default.
Local files 	 Check this if you want backups of local files when saving.
Remote files 	 Check this if you want backups of remote files when saving.
Prefix for backup files 	 Enter the prefix to prepend to the backup file names.
Suffix for backup files 	 Enter the suffix to add to the backup file names.
Swap file mode 	 is able to recover (most) unsaved work in the case of a crash or power failure. A swap file (.<filename>.kate-swp) is created when a document is edited. If the user doesn’t save the changes and crashes, the swap file remains on the disk. When opening a file, checks if there is a swap file for the document and if it is, it asks the user whether he wants to recover the lost data or not. The user has the possibility to view the differences between the original file and the recovered one, too. The swap file is deleted after every save and on normal exit.
syncs the swap files on the disk every 15 seconds, but only if they have changed since the last sync. The user can disable the swap files syncing if he wants, by selecting Disable, but this can lead to more data loss.
When the swap file is enabled, it is possible to switch between two modes, namely Enabled, Store in Default Directory and Enabled, Store in Custom Directory.
Store swap files in 	By default, the swap files are saved in the same folder as the file. When Enabled, Store in Custom Directory is chosen for the swap file mode, swap files are created in the specified folder. This is useful for network file systems to avoid unnecessary network traffic.
Save swap files every 	 syncs the swap files on the disk every 15 seconds, but only if they have changed since the last sync. You can change the sync interval as you like.

Modes & Filetypes
This page allows you to override the default configuration for documents of specified types. When the editor loads a document, it will try if it matches the file masks or types for one of the defined filetypes, and if so apply the variables defined. If more filetypes match, the one with the highest priority will be used.
Filetype: 	The filetype with the highest priority is the one displayed in the first drop down box. If more filetypes were found, they are also listed.
New 	This is used to create a new filetype. After you click on this button, the fields below get empty and you can fill the properties you want for the new filetype.
Delete 	To remove an existing filetype, select it from the drop down box and press the Delete button.
Properties of current filetype 	The filetype with the highest priority is the one displayed in the first drop down box. If more filetypes were found, they are also listed.
Name: 	The name of the filetype will be the text of the corresponding menu item. This name is displayed in the Tools Filetypes menu.
Section: 	The section name is used to organize the file types in menus. This is also used in the Tools Filetypes menu.
Variables: 	This string allows you to configure 's settings for the files selected by this type using variables. You can set almost any configuration option, such as highlight, indent-mode,
Press Edit to see a list of all available variables and their descriptions. Select the checkbox on the left to enable a particular variable and then set the value of the variable on the right. Some variables provide a drop-down box to select possible values from while others require you to enter a valid value manually.
For complete information on these variables, see Configuring with Document Variables.
Highlighting: 	If you create a new file type, this drop down box allows you to select a filetype for highlighting.
Indentation Mode: 	The drop down box specifies the indentation mode for new documents.
File extensions: 	The wildcards mask allows you to select files by filename. A typical mask uses an asterisk and the file extension, for example *.txt; *.text. The string is a semicolon-separated list of masks.
MIME types: 	Displays a wizard that helps you easily select types.
Priority: 	Sets a priority for this file type. If more than one file type selects the same file, the one with the highest priority will be used.

Configuring With Document Variables
variables is 's implementation of document variables, similar to and vi modelines. In katepart, the lines have the following format: kate: VARIABLENAME VALUE; [ VARIABLENAME VALUE; ... ] The lines can of course be in a comment, if the file is in a format with comments. Variable names are single words (no whitespace), and anything up to the next semicolon is the value. The semicolon is required.
Here is an example variable line, forcing indentation settings for a C++, or file:

// kate: replace-tabs on; indent-width 4; indent-mode cstyle;

Only the first and last 10 lines are searched for variable lines.
Additionally, document variables can be placed in a file called .kateconfig in any directory, and the configured settings will be applied as if the modelines were entered on every file in the directory and its subdirectories. Document variables in .kateconfig use the same syntax as in modelines, but with extended options.
There are variables to support almost all configurations in , and additionally plugins can use variables, in which case it should be documented in the plugin's documentation.
has support for reading configurations from .editorconfig files, when the editorconfig library is installed. automatically searches for a .editorconfig whenever you open a file. It gives priority to .kateconfig files, though.

How uses Variables
When reading configuration, katepart looks in the following places (in that order):
The global configuration.
Optional session data.
The "Filetype" configuration.
Document variables in .kateconfig.
Document variables in the document itself.
Settings made during editing from menu or command line.
As you can see, document variables are only overridden by changes made at runtime. Whenever a document is saved, the document variables are reread, and will overwrite changes made using menu items or the command line.
Any variable not listed below is stored in the document and can be queried by other objects such as plugins, which can use them for their own purpose. For example, the variable indent mode uses document variables for its configuration.
The variables listed here documents version 5.38. More variables may be added in the future. There are 3 possible types of values for variables, with the following valid expressions:
BOOL - on|off|true|false|1|0
INTEGER - any integer number
STRING - anything else

Available Variables
auto-brackets BOOL
	Enable automatic insertion of brackets.
auto-center-lines INT
	Set the number of autocenter lines.
background-color STRING
	Set the document background color. The value must be something that can be evaluated to a valid color, for example #ff0000.
backspace-indents BOOL
	Enable or disable unindenting when is pressed.
block-selection BOOL
	Turn block selection on or off.
bom | byte-order-mark | byte-order-marker BOOL
	Enable/disable the byte order mark (BOM) when saving files in Unicode format (utf8, utf16, utf32).
Since: 3.4 ( 4.4)
bracket-highlight-color STRING
	Set the color for the bracket highlight. The value must be something that can be evaluated to a valid color, for example #ff0000.
current-line-color STRING
	Set the color for the current line. The value must be something that can be evaluated to a valid color, for example #ff0000.
default-dictionary STRING
	Sets the default dictionary used for spellchecking.
Since: 3.4 ( 4.4)
dynamic-word-wrap BOOL
	Turns dynamic word wrap on or off.
eol | end-of-line STRING
	Set the end of line mode. Valid settings are unix, mac and dos.
folding-markers BOOL
	Set the display of folding markers on or off.
folding-preview BOOL
	Enable folding preview in the editor border.
font-size INT
	Set the point size of the document font.
font STRING
	Set the font of the document. The value should be a valid font name, for example courier.
hl | syntax STRING
	Set the syntax highlighting. Valid strings are all the names available in the menus. For instance, for C++ simply write C++.
icon-bar-color STRING
	Set the icon bar color. The value must be something that can be evaluated to a valid color, for example #ff0000.
icon-border BOOL
	Set the display of the icon border on or off.
indent-mode STRING
	Set the auto-indentation mode. The options none, normal, cstyle, haskell, lilypond, lisp, python, ruby and xml are recognized. See the section for details.
indent-pasted-text BOOL
	Enable/disable adjusting indentation of text pasted from the clipboard.
Since: 3.11 ( 4.11)
indent-width INT
	Set the indentation width.
keep-extra-spaces BOOL
	Set whether to keep extra spaces when calculating indentation width.
line-numbers BOOL
	Set the display of line numbers on or off.
newline-at-eof BOOL
	Add an empty line at the end of the file (EOF) when saving the document.
Since: 3.9 ( 4.9)
overwrite-mode BOOL
	Set overwrite mode on or off.
persistent-selection BOOL
	Set persistent selection on or off.
replace-tabs-save BOOL
	Set tab to space conversion on save on or off.
replace-tabs BOOL
	Set dynamic tab to space conversion on or off.
remove-trailing-spaces STRING
	Removes trailing spaces when saving the document. Valid options are:
none, - or 0: never remove trailing spaces.
modified, mod, + or 1: remove trailing spaces only in modified lines. The modified lines are marked by the line modification system.
all, * or 2: remove trailing spaces in the entire document.
scrollbar-minimap BOOL
	Show scrollbar minimap.
scrollbar-preview BOOL
	Show scrollbar preview.
scheme STRING
	Set the color scheme. The string must be the name of a color scheme that exists in your configuration to have any effect.
selection-color STRING
	Set the selection color. The value must be something that can be evaluated to a valid color, for example #ff0000.
show-tabs BOOL
	Set the visual tab character on or off.
smart-home BOOL
	Set smart home navigation on or off.
tab-indents BOOL
	Set key indentation on or off.
tab-width INT
	Set the tab character display width.
undo-steps INT
	Set the number of undo steps to remember.
Note: Deprecated since 3 in 4. This variable is ignored. The maximal count of undo steps is unlimited.
word-wrap-column INT
	Set the static word wrap width.
word-wrap-marker-color STRING
	Set the word wrap marker color. The value must be something that can be evaluated to a valid color, for example #ff0000.
word-wrap BOOL
	Set static word wrapping on or off.

Extended Options in .kateconfig files
always search for a .kateconfig file for local files (not remote files). In addition, it is possible to set options based on wildcards (file extensions) as follows:

kate: tab-width 4; indent-width 4; replace-tabs on;
kate-wildcard(*.xml): indent-width 2;
kate-wildcard(Makefile): replace-tabs off;

In this example, all files use a tab-width of 4 spaces, an indent-width of 4 spaces, and tabs are replaced expanded to spaces. However, for all *.xml files, the indent width is set to 2 spaces. And Makefiles use tabs, tabs are not replaced with spaces.
Wildcards are semicolon separated, you can also specify multiple file extensions as follows:

kate-wildcard(*.json;*.xml): indent-width 2;

Further, you can also use the type to match certain files, ⪚ to indent all C++ source files with 4 spaces, you can write:

kate-mimetype(text/x-c++src): indent-width 4;

Next to the support in .kateconfig files, wildcard and type dependent document variables are also supported in the files itself as comments.