98-172 : Great Practical Ideas for Computer Scientists

Emacs cheat sheet

Navigation
Operation
Move Delete
Amount forward backward forward backward
Characters C-f C-b C-d DEL
Words M-f M-b M-d M-DEL or C-DEL
Lines C-n C-p No bindings
Line end/start C-e C-a C-k C-SPC C-a C-w
Sentences M-a M-e M-k C-x DEL
Expressions C-M-f C-M-b C-M-k
Paragraphs M-} M-{
No bindings Buer end/start M-< M->
Page down/up C-v M-v
Other navigation commands
M-g g n Jump to line n
C-x C-x Swap mark and point (see Terminology section, below).
Terminology
C-, control The control key.
M-, meta The alt key on most PC keyboards; on Macs, usually the
option key.
kill, yank cut and paste respectively.
ring A list of saved values which can be iterated through. Eg.
the kill ring, which saves killed text for yanking.
point The current cursor location.
mark A saved location in a buer, set with C-SPC.
region The text between the point and mark.
prex
argument
A way to modify commands behavior using a prex key
combination. Behavior depends on the command being
modied. Most commonly, it repeats the command a spec-
ied number of times.
mode A buers modes add special behavior to it; for example,
Python-mode adds syntax hilighting and useful commands
for Python code.
SPC The space key.
DEL The delete or backspace key.
RET The enter or return key.
Miscellanea
C-/ Undo. Also C- , C-x u, and M-x undo.
C-u n Numeric prex argument; usually, repeats a subsequent com-
mand n times.
C-g Cancel or abort a command.
C-x C-c Quit emacs.
TAB Mode-dependent; usually auto-indents current line.
M-x NAME Run the named command.
M-: EXPR Evaluate a lisp expression (for advanced users).
Files and buers
C-x C-f Open le by name.
C-x C-s Save le.
C-x C-w Write le with new name.
C-x b Switch buer by name.
C-x C-b List buers. Hit enter on a buer to switch to it.
Killing (cutting) and yanking (pasting)
C-y Yank (paste) most recently killed (cut/copied) text.
M-y After C-y, yank next-recently-killed. Repeat to continue.
C-SPC Mark current location.
C-w Kill current region.
M-w Copy the current region without killing it.
Search and replace
C-s Search forward. Repeat (or use after C-r) for next match.
C-r Search backward. Repeat (or use after C-s) for previous match.
C-M-s Search forward using regexp matching.
C-M-r Search backard using regexp matching.
M-x % Interactive string replacement. Also M-x query-replace. The
regexp version is M-x query-replace-regexp.
Help
C-h C-h Help about help.
C-h c KEY Name of the function associated with a key combination.
C-h k KEY Help for the function associated with a key combination.
C-h f NAME Help for a particular function.
C-h a WORD Help for all functions matching a particular word.
C-h b Display key bindings.
C-h m Help for the current modes.
C-h r The emacs manual.
Long commands
M-x iswitchb-mode Makes switching buers a lot nicer.
M-x ansi-term Opens an emulated terminal inside emacs.
M-x compile
Prompts for a command to run to compile code.
M-x menu-bar-mode
Toggles display of the menu bar. M-x scroll-bar-mode and M-x
tool-bar-mode behave analogously.
M-x customize
A special mode that makes customizing emacs much easier. See also
customize-group. One useful group is iswitchb.
Resources (other than google.com)
http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/emacs.html
The emacs manual, online.
http://www.stackoverflow.com/
Good general-purpose programming questions site.
#emacs on irc.freenode.org
An IRC channel for all things emacs.
http://www.emacswiki.org/
A wiki dedicated to emacs.