One of the most useful short manuals for emacs is the following refrence card. It takes some time to use this card efficiently, but the most important commands are written on it. Generations of students have litterally been just presented with this card and they learned emacs from it.
There is naturally also additional material available and a great manual. You could also look at
From the last page we have summarized the most useful and simple features. And present them here. One of the hidden gems of emacs is the ability to recreate replay able macros which we include here also. You ought to try it and you will find that for data science and the cleanup of data emacs (applied to smaller datasets) is a gem.
Notation
| Key | Description |
|---|---|
| C | Control |
| M | Esc (meta character) |
In the event of an emergency…
Here’s what to do if you’ve accidentally pressed a wrong key:
If you executed a command and Emacs has modified your buffer, use C-/ to undo that change. If you pressed a prefix key (e.g. C-x) or you invoked a command which is now prompting you for input (e.g. Find file: …), type C-g, repeatedly if necessary, to cancel. C-g also cancels a long-running operation if it appears that Emacs has frozen.
Moving around in buffers can be done with cursor keys, or with the following key combinations:
| Key | Description |
|---|---|
| C-f | Forward one character |
| C-n | Next line |
| C-b | Back one character |
| C-p | Previous line |
Here are some ways to move around in larger increments:
| Key | Description |
|---|---|
| C-a | Beginning of line |
| M-f | Forward one word |
| M-a | Previous sentence |
| M-v | Previous screen |
| M-< | Beginning of buffer |
| C-e | End of line |
| M-b | Back one word |
| M-e | Next sentence |
| C-v | Next screen |
| M-> | End of buffer |
You can jump directly to a particular line number in a buffer:
| Key | Description |
|---|---|
| M-g g | Jump to specified line |
Searching is easy with the following commands
| Key | Description |
|---|---|
| C-s | Incremental search forward |
| C-r | Incremental search backward |
Replace
| Key | Description |
|---|---|
| M-% | Query replace |
Killing (“cutting”) text
| Key | Description |
|---|---|
| C-k | Kill line |
Yanking
| Key | Description |
|---|---|
| C-y | Yanks last killed text |
Macros
Keyboard Macros
Keyboard macros are a way to remember a fixed sequence of keys for later repetition. They’re handy for automating some boring editing tasks.
| Key | Description |
|---|---|
| M-x ( | Start recording macro |
| M-x ) | Stop recording macro |
| M-x e | Play back macro once |
| M-5 M-x-e | Play back macro 5 times |
Modes
“Every buffer has an associated major mode, which alters certain behaviors, key bindings, and text display in that buffer. The idea is to customize the appearance and features available based on the contents of the buffer.” modes are typically activated by ending such as .py, .java, .rst, …
| Key | Description |
|---|---|
| M-x python-mode | Mode for editing Python files |
| M-x auto-fill-mode | Wraps your lines automatically when they get longer than 70 characters. |
| M-x flyspell-mode | Highlights misspelled words as you type. |