Emacs Keys Overview
For emacs's basic keys, see Emacs Keys Basics
Organization of Emacs Key Shortcuts
Emacs keys are often confusing to beginners. Here's a summary.
• Alt+x is to call a command by name.
• Ctrl+letter is for frequently used editing commands. For example: cursor movement next-line
• Paste C-y
• mark C-SPC
• keyboard-quit
C-g
• isearch-forward
C-s
, etc.
• Alt+letter is for somewhat less frequently used operations, often complement to Ctrl. For example: move by words {M-f
• M-b
}, Copy M-w
• comment-dwim
M-;
, etc.
• Ctrl+x … is for commands that are useful globally. For example: dired
C-x d
• switch-to-buffer
C-x b
• string-rectangle
C-x r t
• list-bookmarks
C-x r l
, etc.
• Ctrl+c … is for major-mode specific commands. For example: in org-mode, org-time-stamp
C-c .
inserts date.
• Ctrl+h … or F1 … is for help or getting info. For example: describe-function
C-h f
• apropos-command
C-h a
• info
C-h i
.
• Ctrl+Alt+key is for lisp coding related commands. For example: backward-sexp
<C-M-left>
.
[see Emacs: How to Edit Lisp Code]
Note
Alt+x
is technically Meta+x, ususually written as M-x
. “Meta” is a physical key on lisp machine keyboards. If you are in a text terminal, and no Meta remapping has been setup, you can type Meta+x by pressing Escape x.
[see Space-cadet Keyboard and Lisp Machine Keyboards]
See also: A Curious Look at Emacs One Thousand Keybindings.