Summary of Basic Emacs Commands

M-v        Move backward one screenful

C-l        Clear screen and redisplay everything

(Putting the text near the cursor at the centre of the screen)

C-p        Move to the previous line

C-n        Move to the next line

C-b        Move backward one character

C-f        Move forward one character

C-d        Delete one character

C-k        Kill from the cursor position to end of line

C-y        To yank the lastly killed text back

C-a        Move to the begining of the line

C-e        Move to the end of the line

M-k        Kill to the end of the current sentence

M-f        Move forward one word

M-b        Move backward one word

M-a        Move to the begining of the sentence

M-e        Move to the end of the sentence

M-<        Move to the begining of the file

M->        Move to the end of the file

M-d        Kill the next word after the cursor

C-x u      Undoes one command’s worth of changes

C-x C-s    Save the file

C-x C-w    Write to the file

C-x C-f    retrieve/open a file

C-u n C-f  Move forward `n’ characters (n should be a number)

C-x C-c    Save file and exit

 

Notes:

  • C stands for the Control-key
  • M stands for Meta-key and is usually the escape key

Created by: Daniel J. Hood, August 2000