Emacs tutorial notes
4 November 2002
Mike Daniels

Conventions:

C-x means hold down the control key and press x
S-x means hold down the shift key and press x
M-X means hold down the meta key and press x OR
          press Escape, and then press x

Note that C-S-x and C-X are the same thing.

Files:

C-x C-f opens files
C-x i inserts a file
C-x C-s saves a file
C-x C-w saves a file with a different name

Cursor navigation:

C-a - beginning of line
C-e - end of line
C-f - forward character
C-b - backward character
M-f - forward word
M-b - backward word
C-n - next line
C-p - previous line
M-< - top of buffer
M-> - end of buffer
C-v - page down
M-v - page up

To bring emacs' cursor movement in line with windows conventions:

  M-x pc-selection-mode

Undo:

C-x u OR
C-_

Cancel:

C-g

The basic help system: C-h i
What does this key do? C-h k
What command is appropriate for doing X? C-h a

Selection:

Use mouse to highlight, OR
Type C-{SPACE} at the beginning of the region and move the cursor to
the end OR

M-h - select current paragraph
C-x h - select entire buffer
C-x C-p - select entire page

Things to do with selected text:

 C-k - cut
 M-w - copy
 M-x print-region - print

 Use any command with "region" in its name.

Paste: C-y

Search and replace:

C-s - incremental search
C-M-s - incremental regexp-based search
M-% - interactive search and replace
C-M-% - interactive regexp-based search and replace

Interactive search-and-replace:

{SPACE} replace and continue OR y
{DELETE} skip and continue OR n
{RETURN} skip and stop OR q
. replace and stop
! replace all
^ back up

Window management:

C-x b [buffername] - create a buffer, or switch to an existing one
C-x 4 b [buffername] - do the above in another window
C-x 5 b [buffername] - do the above in another frame
C-x k [buffername] - get rid of buffer

C-x 2 - split vertically
C-x 3 - split horizontally
C-x o - move to other window
C-M-v - scroll other window (without moving to it)

C-x {zero} - delete current window
C-x {one} - delete other windows

Frame management:

C-x 5 2 - make new frame
C-x 5 b [buffername] - put or create buffername in a new frame
C-x 5 0 - get rid of frame
C-x 5 o - move to other frame
C-x 5 1 - delete other frames

Customization:

M-x customize

Modes:

C-h m - describe current modes

Emacs at home:

Emacs for windows can be obtained here:

ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/windows/emacs/latest/

See http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/windows/ for installation
instructions.

Emacs for mac can be obtained here:

http://mac-emacs.sourceforge.net/

Remote editing:

C-x C-f /user@host:path/file