Department of Engineering

IT Services

Common Commands

In a graphics environment, the common commands are available via the menus. Many of the menu items also have control-key equivalents which are displayed in the menu. For instance the File menu contains an item "Save Buffer (C-x C-s)" ("C-" means 'hold the Ctrl key down"). It's worth learning the short cuts for common operations, even if you're at a graphics terminal. Here's a list of some useful ones.

C-gcancel
C-sincremental search forwards
C-rincremental search backwards
C-kkill line
C-yyank line
C-x C-fload in a file
C-x C-ssave a file
C-x C-w   write to a new file
C-x C-iinsert a file

With 'incremental searching', searching commences as soon as you begin to type in the target string. Hitting the Backspace key will remove the last letter from the current target string unless you have repeatedly used a search command with the same target, in which case emacs will go back to the last instance of the target found.