Emacs Quick Reference
The following reference guide is by no means all-inclusive, but is
meant to aid the beginning user in navigating the keystroke-intensive
Emacs program. The abbreviation C- refers
to holding down the <Control> key
while pressing what follows, while the abbreviation ESC- refers to pressing the <ESC> key and what follows.
C-f | Move point forward one character. |
C-b | Move point backward one character. |
C-p | Move point to previous line. |
C-n | Move point to next line. |
C-a | Move point to beginning of current line. |
C-e | Move point to end of current line. |
Esc-f | Move point forward one word. |
Esc-b | Move point backwards one word. |
C-v | Move down one screen. |
Esc-v | Move up one screen. |
Esc-< | Move point to start of current buffer. |
Esc-> | Move point to end of current buffer. |
Note: In addition to these keys, standard keys, such
as <left>, <right>, <up>, <down>,
<Page-Up>, and <Page-Down> can also be used to move the
point cursor on most terminals
C-@ | Mark the current point location (also performed by C-<SpaceBar>). |
C-x h | Mark entire buffer as the region, with mark at end and place point at start. |
C-k | Delete the current line to the right. |
C-w | Delete the current region. |
ESC-w | Copy a region. |
C-y | Yank (paste) the last region or set of lines deleted at the current point. |
C-d | Delete next character. |
Esc-d | Kill next word (can be yanked back). |
Esc-DEL | Kill previous word. |
C-x C-s | Save file but do not quit Emacs. |
C-x C-c | Quit Emacs, giving option to save if there are unsaved changes. |
C-x C-w | Write file, option to change the filename. |
C-x i | Insert a file at the current point. |
C-x C-f | Edit another file. |
C-l | Refresh the screen. |
C-v | Move down a screen. |
ESC-v | Move up a screen. |
C-x 2 | Split the screen
vertically into two windows. |
C-x 3 | Split the screen
horizontally into two windows. |
C-x o | Move to the other window. |
C-x 1 | Fill screen with current window. |
C-x 0 | Delete currently selected window. |
C-x C-b | List all of the current buffers. |
C-x b | Switch to buffer (Emacs prompts for the buffer's name). |
ESC-x shell | Start a UNIX shell in the current buffer. |
C-s | Search forward; pushing C-s again Searches for the next occurrence. |
C-r | Search backward; pushing C-r again searches for the next occurrence. |
C-g | Cancel the current search or go back to previously found search item if search was done again. |
ESC-x replace string | Replaces all occurrences of first string with second string. |
ESC-% | Replace the first string with the second string, but query for each occurrence (n goes to next, y replaces). |
ESC-x spell buffer | Check spelling of the current buffer. |
ESC-x spell word | Check spelling of the word at the point. |
C-q | Allow the insertion of a control sequence. |
ESC-c | Capitalizes character at the point and makes rest of word lowercase. |
ESC-l |
ESC-u | Changes word to uppercase from the point to the end of the word. |
C-h | Start help. C-h three times for help menu. |
C-g | Stops current command. |
C-x u | Undo the last keystroke. |
ESC-# | Completes a command # times (where # is a number). |
Last updated:
February 04, 2011