Emacs Cheatsheet

Basic Movement and Editing Commands

Kill & Yank (Cut/Copy and Paste)

Search & Replace

Emacs Modes

Buffers

Windows

Dired Mode

Shell Modes

Getting Help

w3m mode

Sample .emacs

Basic Movement and Editing Commands

C-x C-f | Find file and load into buffer (Emacs prompts for filename)
C-x C-s | Save the current buffer
C-x C-w | Save the current buffer under a different name (Emacs prompts for the new name)
C-x C-c | Quit Emacs, prompting if you have not saved any buffers
Arrow keys or C-f, C-b, C-n, C-p | Right (forward), left (back), down (next), up (previous), respectively
C-k | Delete from cursor to end of line
C-a | Go to start of line
C-e | Go to end of line
C-v | Go down a page
M-v | Go up a page
M-f | Go to next word
M-b | Go back one word
M-a | Go to previous sentence
M-b | Go to next sentence
C-x u | Undo
C-g | Abort the current command
C-l | Redraw and center screen at cursor
M-< | Go to start of buffer
M-> | Go to end of buffer
C-d | Delete next character
M-d | Delete next word
M-| | Execute shell command on region
Backspace | Delete previous character

Kill & Yank (Cut/Copy and Paste)

C-space | Set the mark
C-w | Cut (kill)
M-w | Copy (kill)
C-y | Paste (yank)
M-y | Paste (yank) next saved selection
C-x h | Set point to start of buffer and mark to end of buffer (select the entire buffer)
C-x C-x | Swap point and mark

Search & Replace

C-s | Incremental search forward
C-r | Incremental search backward
C-M-s | Regexp search forward
C-M-r | Regexp search backward
M-% | Search and replace
M-x query-replace-regexp | Search and replace with regexps
C-g | Abort a search
C-w | During a search, highlight the word around the cursor
Up, down arrow keys or M-p, M-n | Access search string history

Emacs Modes

M-x modename | Toggle the given major or minor mode
C-h m | Display help on the current major mode, including any special key bindings in effect
M-q | Used in text-mode to reformat a paragraph of text manually
M-x global-font-lock-mode | Toggle syntax highlighting

Buffers

C-x b | Switch to another buffer
C-x C-b | Display buffer list
C-x k | Kill current buffer (Emacs prompts for confirmation)
M-x iswitchb-mode | Enable iswitch mode, for smart buffer name completion with C-x b

Windows

C-x 0 | Close this window
C-x 1 | Close all other visible windows
C-x 2 | Split horizontally
C-x 3 | Split vertically
C-x o | Switch to other window
C-M-v | Scroll other window

Dired Mode

M-x dired | Load dired mode (Emacs prompts for directory name)
C-x C-f | Dired mode loaded when a directory is specified as load file
Left, right arrow keys or p, n | Previous and next file, respectively
Enter | Visit this file in this window
o | Visit this file in a new window
g | Refresh directory view
m | Mark file
u | Un-mark file
d | Mark a file for later deletion
x | Delete all files marked for deletion (Emacs prompts for confirmation)
D | Delete this file right now (Emacs prompts for confirmation)
C | Copy this file, or copy currently marked files (Emacs prompts for destination)
R | Rename/move this file, or rename/move currently marked files (Emacs prompts for destination)
M | Chmod this file, or chmod currently marked files (Emacs prompts for new permissions)
O | Chown this file, or chown currently marked files (Emacs prompts for new owner)
G | Chgrp this file, or chgrp currently marked files (Emacs prompts for new group)
+ | Create directory (Emacs prompts for directory name)
! | Execute shell command on this file, or currently marked files (Emacs prompts for command)

Shell Modes

M-x shell | Shell mode, use M-p and M-n for command history
M-x eshell | Cross-platform Emacs Lisp shell emulator, use arrow keys for command history
M-x ansi-term | Full terminal emulator, suitable for full-screen applications.

Getting Help

C-h t | Emacs tutorial
C-h a | Apropos (Emacs prompts for keyword or regexp)
C-h i | Load info browser
C-h m | Display help on current mode
C-h f | Display help on function (Emacs prompts for function)
C-h k | Display help on key (Emacs prompts for key)
M-x man | Display a man page in a new buffer (Emacs prompts for man page)

w3m mode

M-x w3m | Start browsing web with emacs-w3m.
q | Close all emacs-w3m windows, without deleting buffers.
Q | Exit browsing web. All emacs-w3m buffers will be deleted.
RET | Display the page pointed to by the link under point.
C-c C-c | Submit the form at point.
R | Reload the current page.
r | Redisplay the current page.
TAB | Move the point to the next anchor.
M-TAB | Move the point to the previous anchor.
B | Move back to the previous page in the history.
N | Move forward to the next page in the history.
U | Visit the web page.
H | Go to the Home page.
M-d | Download the URL.
d | Download the URL under point.
\ | Display the html source of the current page.
SPC | Scroll up the current window, or go to the next page.
b | Scroll down the current window, or go to the previous page.
> | Scroll to the left.
< | Scroll to the right.
. | Shift to the left.
, | Shift to the right.
M-l | Recenter horizontally.
j | Next line.
k | Previous line.
l | Forward char.
h | Backward char.
s | Display the history of pages you have visited in the session.
S | Prompt for a search query and submit it to google.
v | Display the bookmarks list.
a | Add a url of the current page to a new bookmark.
M-a | Add the url under point to a new bookmark.

Sample .emacs

;; Sample ~/.emacs file
;;
;; Un-comment what you want to enable and re-start Emacs
;;
;;Load iswitch mode
;;(require 'iswitchb)

;;Make text mode the default for new buffers
;;(setq default-major-mode 'text-mode)

;;Turn on refill-mode whenever text mode is entered
;;(add-hook 'text-mode-hook
;;  '(lambda () (refill-mode 1)))

;;Enable syntax highlighting when it's allowed
;;(when (fboundp 'global-font-lock-mode)
;;  (global-font-lock-mode t))

;;Fix the backspace key
;;(normal-erase-is-backspace-mode 1)

;;Use cperl-mode for editing Perl code, it is better than perl-mode
;;(defalias 'perl-mode 'cperl-mode)

;;Don't blink my cursor, please
;;(blink-cursor-mode nil)

;;Display the current time in the modeline
;;(display-time-mode t)

;;Start the emacs server
;;
;;When this is running, programs calling emacsclient open a buffer
;;in the already running emacs. Useful in mutt or pine for composing
;;mail in Emacs. Type C-x # to exit client buffer and send the text
;;back to the application that called it.
;;(server-start)

$Id: emacs-cheatsheet.html,v 1.3 2011/12/04 02:06:19 slugmax Exp $