⚓ Emacs » Usage notes

On this page, I document only the emacs commands that I use interactively.

Green means built-in, orange means custom.

⚓ Emacs » Usage notes » Built-in

⚓ Emacs » Usage notes » Built-in » Fundamental mode

Commands accessible from anywhere unless overridden.

⚠ Incomplete

⚓ Emacs » Usage notes » Built-in » Fundamental mode » Routinely used commands

Some possibly less-well-known commands I routinely use are: M-m, C-x C-v, C-j.

⚓ Emacs » Usage notes » Built-in » Fundamental mode » Routinely used commands » Moving within buffers

These commands move point (the cursor) and/or scroll to show a different portion of the buffer in the current window, but never modify the buffer.

C-s, C-r ⚓

isearch-forward, isearch-backward.

My favorite way of moving around in emacs!

Allows you to move directly where you want to, with a minimum of thinking, keystrokes, and time. Useful for all but the shortest distances.

Also, a staple of keyboard macros.

C-v, M-v ⚓

PageDown, PageUp (casual)

scroll-up, scroll-down.

Scrolls down (respectively up). ("Scrolls the text up (respectively down)", hence the weird "reversed" nomenclature.)

Related .emacs sample: (setf next-screen-context-lines 1) (overrides default: 2.)

M-<, M-> ⚓

beginning-of-buffer, end-of-buffer.

Go to the first or last position in the buffer, respectively.

C-f, C-b, C-n, C-p ⚓

forward-char, backward-char, next-line, previous-line.

Roughly, go one position forward, backward, down or up, respectively.

I never use the arrow keys in emacs.

I have (setf line-move-visual nil) in my .emacs, to move by logical lines. The default, t, is perhaps initially appealing, but can really wreak havoc in keyboard macros in particular, and anyway moving about in even extremely long lines is trivial with C-s and C-r.

C-a, C-e ⚓

move-beginning-of-line, move-end-of-line.

Move to the beginning or end of the line, respectively.

M-m ⚓

back-to-indentation

Like C-a, but skips initial whitespace.

⚓ Emacs » Usage notes » Built-in » Fundamental mode » Routinely used commands » Managing buffers

C-x C-f ⚓

find-file

TODO

C-x C-v ⚓

find-alternate-file

TODO

C-x C-s ⚓

save-buffer

TODO

C-x b ⚓

switch-to-buffer

TODO

(Actually iswitchb-buffer in my case.)

C-x k ⚓

kill-buffer

TODO

⚓ Emacs » Usage notes » Built-in » Fundamental mode » Routinely used commands » Managing windows

C-x 0 ⚓

delete-window

TODO

C-x 1 ⚓

delete-other-windows

TODO

C-x 2 ⚓

split-window-vertically

TODO

C-x + ⚓

balance-windows

TODO

⚓ Emacs » Usage notes » Built-in » Fundamental mode » Routinely used commands » Misc

C-k ⚓

kill-line

Kill from the current position to the end of the line.

C-SPC ⚓

set-mark-command

TODO

C-w ⚓

kill-region

TODO

C-y ⚓

yank

Paste the last block of consecutively killed text, or the last one that was yanked (pasted), whichever happened most recently.

Normally leaves point at the end of the yanked text, but with a prefix argument, leaves point at the start of the yanked text, which is sometimes useful in keyboard macros in particular.

The mark is usefully left at the opposite end of the yanked text, so you can immediately select the region of just-yanked text with C-x C-x if you need to operate on it.

M-y ⚓

yank-pop

Successive invocations of this command, which must happen after an initial C-y, cycle through the kill ring.

C-x r s ⚓

copy-to-register

TODO

C-x r i ⚓

insert-register

TODO

C-j ⚓

newline-and-indent

TODO

⚓ Emacs » Usage notes » Built-in » Fundamental mode » Rarely used commands

C-x ( ⚓

kmacro-start-macro

TODO

C-x ) ⚓

kmacro-end-macro

TODO

C-x e ⚓

kmacro-end-and-call-macro

TODO

M-x name-last-kbd-macro ⚓

name-last-kbd-macro

TODO

(Not actually in fundamental mode.)

C-x r n ⚓

number-to-register

TODO

C-x r + ⚓

increment-register

TODO

M-q ⚓

fill-paragraph

TODO

⚓ Emacs » Usage notes » Built-in » Fundamental mode » Almost never used commands

C-x C-c ⚓

save-buffers-kill-terminal

TODO

C-h k ⚓

describe-key

TODO

C-h w ⚓

where-is

TODO

C-h m ⚓

describe-mode

Give an overview of how to use the current major mode.

C-x z ⚓

repeat

TODO

C-x r SPC ⚓

point-to-register

TODO

C-x r j ⚓

jump-to-register

TODO

M-x indent-region ⚓

indent-region

TODO

IS in fundamental mode, but the default keybinding is hard or impossible to type in my configuration.

M-x untabify ⚓

untabify

TODO

(Not actually in fundamental mode.)

C-x 3 ⚓

split-window-horizontally

TODO

C-x C-x ⚓

exchange-point-and-mark

TODO

M-x make-directory ⚓

make-directory

TODO

C-x i ⚓

insert-file

TODO

⚓ Emacs » Usage notes » Built-in » Dired

Filesystem browser and editor.

✔ Ready

⚓ Emacs » Usage notes » Built-in » Dired » Routinely used commands

RET ⚓

dired-find-file

Visit the currently selected file or directory.

If it's a directory, open a new, independent instance of dired. The previous dired instance is left open in the background. (Might be unintuitive to some, it certainly was to me at first...)

d ⚓

dired-flag-file-deletion

Flag a file or directory for deletion.

x ⚓

dired-do-flagged-delete

Delete the files and directories currently flagged for deletion.

g ⚓

revert-buffer

Reload the directory from the filesystem, particularly to see changes made outside of emacs.

⚓ Emacs » Usage notes » Built-in » Dired » Rarely used commands

DEL ⚓

dired-unmark-backwards

Select the previous file or directory and unflag it.

u ⚓

dired-unmark

Unflag the current file or directory.

R ⚓

dired-do-rename

Rename (and/or move) the currently selected file or directory.

C ⚓

dired-do-copy

Copy the currently selected file or directory.

⚓ Emacs » Usage notes » Built-in » Dired » Almost never used commands

^ ⚓

dired-up-directory

Open a new, independent instance of dired in the parent directory.

I often do C-x C-v and delete the last directory instead...

⚓ Emacs » Usage notes » Built-in » Info

Documentation browser.

✔ Ready

⚓ Emacs » Usage notes » Built-in » Info » Routinely used commands

For movement within an Info node, I simply use the normal emacs movement commands. I never ever use Info's utterly confusing SPC and DEL to scroll down and up, as they don't respect node boundaries and as a result don't make me feel in control.

RET ⚓

Info-follow-nearest-node

Follow a link.

d ⚓