Basic (X)Emacs Commands

Note that the Meta key shown below is typically the Alt key on most modern terminal emulators.

Commands

Meta + v

Move backward one screenful


Ctrl + l

Clear screen and redisplay everything (re-centers the screen)


Ctrl + p

Move to the previous line


Ctrl + n

Move to the next line


Ctrl + b

Move backward one character


Ctrl + f

Move forward one character


Ctrl + d

Delete one character


Ctrl + k

Kill from the cursor position to end of line


Ctrl + y

To yank the lastly killed text back


Ctrl + a

Move to the begining of the line


Ctrl + e

Move to the end of the line


Meta + k

Kill to the end of the current sentence


Meta + f

Move forward one word


Meta + b

Move backward one word


Meta + a

Move to the begining of the sentence


Meta + e

Move to the end of the sentence


Meta + <

Move to the begining of the file


Meta + >

Move to the end of the file


Meta + d

Kill the next word after the cursor


Ctrl + x , u

Undoes one command’s worth of changes


Ctrl + x , Ctrl + s

Save the file


Ctrl + x , Ctrl + w

Write to the file


Ctrl + x , Ctrl + f

Retrieve/open a file


Ctrl + u , n , Ctrl + f

Move forward ‘n’ characters (n should be a number)


Ctrl + x , Ctrl + c

Save file and exit