Emacs cheat sheet for Windows users

This is a simple cheat sheet for the simple commands that you can do with most text editors. For each operation, I list the emacs name for the operation, then the key sequence, then what that opereration is called in an MS Windows environment. The emacs name for the operation will help you understand why that keystroke is used for this operation. The keystrokes are not the same as those used in MS Windows, for the simple reason that they predate MS Windows, and the Macintoshit was based on, and even MS DOS.

Codes:
C-x means Control-X,
A-x means Alt-x (or press esc, then x),
A-X means Alt-Shift-x (or press esc, then shift-x)

Order: I have put sets of most operations in order of smallest to largest.

File Access

save-buffer - C-x C-s - "File Save"

write-file - C-x w - "File Save As"

find-file - C-x C-f - "File Open", check out dired - "Directory operations".

save-buffers-kill-emacs - C-x C-c - exit from emacs

Very simple editing

If you are not planning to use Emacs very much, on most systems (including Linux) you can get away with using the usual "Arrow" keys (alone), "Delete", and "Backspace" and just type stuff in.

Pay attention to long lines - the "\" at the right margin is not part of the text, it shows that this line of text is continued on the next line of the screen. This is not word-wrapped - it will split in the middle of a word.

If you want to move faster than a letter or line at a time, you can use the "PageUp" and "PageDown" keys. the "Home" key takes you to the left end of a line as you would expect. Unfortunately, the "End" key does not work - use C-e instead.

Simple editing

Move the cursor forward

forward-char - C-f - move one character right

forward-word - A-f - C-right-arrow

next-line - C-n

end-of-line - C-e

forward-sentencs - A-e

forward-paragraph - A-]

forward-page - C-x ] - Possibly a page is determined by presence of "C-l" codes in the file?

Scroll-up - C-v

Move the cursor backward

backward-char - C-b - move one character left

backward-word - A-b

previous-line - C-p

beginning-of-line - C-a

backward-word - A-b

backward-sentence - A-a

backward-paragraph - A-[

backward-page - C-x [

Scroll-up - A-v

Delete

delete-char - C-d

delete-backward-char - DEL

kill-word - A-d

kill-line - C-k

kill-sentence - A-k

kill-buffer - C-x k

See also buffer commands

Insert

yank - C-y - insert from kill buffer

Copyright © 2003 Robert Echlin   Personal Notes