Don't forget, all the basics such as copy, paste, open, save … are in the graphical menus. The menu also shows you their keyboard shortcuts.
First, turn on the CUA mode, under the menu 〖Options ▸ C-x/C-c/C-v Cut and Paste (CUA)〗. The CUA mode will activate the following shortcuts:
Also, it will highlight when a region of a text is selected. And, when a text is selected, typing any text will automatically replace the current selection. Pressing the ⌫ Backspace key will also delete the selection.
| 【Ctrl+x Ctrl+f】 | Open a new file |
| 【Ctrl+x Ctrl+s】 | Save file |
| 【Ctrl+x k】 | Close the current file |
Use the arrow keys ↑ ↓ ← →, and ↖ Home, ↘ End, ⇞ Page △, ⇟ Page ▽ keys.
| 【Ctrl+←】 | Move cursor left by word. |
| 【Ctrl+→】 | Move cursor right by word. |
| 【Ctrl+↖ Home】 | Beginning of document. |
| 【Ctrl+↘ End】 | End of document. |
| 【Alt+d】 | Delete the next word |
| 【Alt+⌫ Backspace】 | Delete the previous word |
| 【Ctrl+k】 | Delete all characters from cursor to end of line |
First pull the menu 〖Options ▸ C-x/C-c/C-v Cut and Paste (CUA)〗, then pull the menu 〖Options ▸ Save Options〗.
| 【Ctrl+z】 | Undo. (To redo, type any character then do undo twice.) |
| 【Ctrl+c】 | Copy |
| 【Ctrl+x】 | Cut |
| 【Ctrl+v】 | Paste |
| 【Ctrl+x h】 | Select All |
| 【Ctrl+Space】 | Mark the starting point for copy/cut a text |
| 【Ctrl+x 2】 | Split window into 2 panes |
| 【Ctrl+x 1】 | Make the cursor pane fill window |
| 【Ctrl+x o】 | Move cursor to the other pane |
To search a word, press 【Ctrl+s】, then type your search text, emacs will move the cursor to the location of the matched text as you type. Press 【Ctrl+s】 again to jump to the next occurrence, press 【Ctrl+r】 to jump to the previous occurrence.
Once you found what you are looking for, press a arrow key to exit.
To exit search and leave the cursor at the place before search started, press 【Ctrl+g】.
See: advanced emacs tips.
In emacs, every keystroke actually executes a command. For example, when you type a key e, emacs actually runs the command self-insert-command. Any key or key combination sequence you press ultimately calls a command. There are 2.5k commands in emacs. Most commonly used commands have a keyboard shortcut, such as moving the cursor, opening file, copy paste, close a file, search text. To run a command by name, type 【Alt+x】 followed by the command name.
| Shortcut | Command Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 【Ctrl+g】 | keyboard-quit | Cancel a command in progress, or cancel unfinished keyboard keystroke sequence |
| 【Alt+x】 | execute-extended-command | execute a command by name |
If you know a command's name, you can find out its keyboard shortcut (if there is one).
If you know a keyboard shortcut, you can find out what command it calls.
The commands for these are describe-key and describe-function.
| Shortcut | Command Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 【F1 k】 | describe-key | Find the command name of a key |
| 【F1 f】 | describe-function | Find the key of a command |
In emacs, a selection of text is called “region”. Many commands acts on the selected text. Here are some examples of commands that act on the region.
sort-linesupcase-initials-regionupcase-regiondowncase-regionNot all commands acts on region. Here are some commands that do not necessary need a region:
list-matching-lines (acts on whole file)delete-matching-lines (acts on region if exist, else work from cursor point to end of file.)delete-non-matching-lines (acts on region if exist, else work from cursor point to end of file.)highlight-phrase (color a word you want. Acts on the whole file)The above are just some examples. There are 2.5k commands in emacs by default.
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