Note
This document was edited with Vim! I don’t really use Emacs, but a long time ago in 1998, I gave it a try and here are my notes. These notes do come in handy since many Emacs conventions persist in things like the readline library common to many things, notably the Emacs mode of Bash.
  • C-x

    • C-f Open file (find-file)

    • C-c Exit

    • h Select entire buffer

    • C-i Insert file at current position (insert-file)

    • C-s Save file

    • u Undo

    • C-v Open another file (find-alternate-file)

    • C-w Save as (write-buffer)

    • C-x moves mark to point and point to mark

  • C-h Starts help functions

    • t tutorial

    • k describe following key sequence

    • f describe following command name

    • i Info documentation reader

M-x auto-fill-mode Sets decent word wrap properties.

M-[[#..]] Repeat next command # times

MOVEMENT

  • C-p Previous line

  • C-n Next line

  • C-f Forward 1 character

  • M-f Forward 1 word

  • C-b Backward 1 character

  • M-b Backward 1 word

  • C-a Beginning of line

  • M-a Beginning of sentance

  • C-e End of line

  • M-e End of sentance

  • M-} Forward paragraph

  • M-{ Backward paragraph

  • C-v Scroll-up

  • M-v Scroll-down

  • M-< Beginning of buffer(file)

  • M→ End of buffer(file)

DELETION

  • C-d Delete next character

  • M-d Delete next word

  • Del Delete previous character

  • M-Del Delete previous word

  • C-k Delete to end of current line (kill-line)

  • M-k Delete the next sentance (kill-sentance)

  • C-x Del Kill previous sentance (backward-kill-sentance)

  • C-y Restore deletions (yank) Shift-Ins

  • C-w Cut a selected region (kill-region) Shift-Del

  • C-space Defines the start "set-mark" for a region command

  • M-h Selects entire paragraph

  • C-x h Selects entire buffer