Emacs Commands Reminder Sheet
Emacs is a powerful text editor. And it's huge. This page is intended as a reminder of some commands I find handy. If you'd like to learn more about Emacs, one place to start would be the GNU Emacs Homepage.
Notation
From the Emacs Tutorial:
Emacs commands generally involve the CONTROL key (sometimes labeled CTRL or CTL) or the META key (sometimes labeled EDIT or ALT). Rather than write that in full each time, we'll use the following abbreviations:
- C-<chr>
- means hold the CONTROL key while typing the character <chr> Thus, C-f would be: hold the CONTROL key and type f.
- M-<chr>
- means hold the META or EDIT or ALT key down while typing <chr>. If there is no META, EDIT or ALT key, instead press and release the ESC key and then type <chr>. We write <ESC> for the ESC key.
Some common commands
| What to type | What it does | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| C-x C-c | quit Emacs | It may ask you what to do with any unsaved buffers (besides *scratch* and *Messages* and the like). |
| C-g | discard command | Used, for example, to ignore a command you started typing, stop a command that's taking too long to execute, or end a search. |
| C-x u | undo | two ways of typing this command |
| C-_ | ||
| C-x C-f | open file | you are then prompted for a filename |
| C-x C-s | save current buffer | |
| C-x s | save some buffers | prompts you about saving unsaved buffers |
| C-x 1 | display only current window | |
| C-w | cut (/kill) | |
| C-y | paste (/yank) | |
| M-w | copy | selecting text with the mouse automatically copies |
| C-x C-b | list buffers | |
| C-x b <buffername> | go to the buffer named <buffername> | Buffers normally have the same name as the corresponding files, but not always. |
| C-s | forward incremental search | First prompts you for a phrase, which it looks for as you type. Type C-s again or C-r to repeat the search. |
| C-r | backwards incremental search | like C-s but searches backwards |