Introduction to Emacs

Emacs is the most popular editor for Unix. It has some good and some bad features. This document is designed to give you the basics to get started with emacs, and it's cousin, jmacs. Both editors have very good on-line help that should be used for detailed questions.

Conventions:

Capital C indicates use of the control key while holding down the subsequent key.
Capital M indicates using the Escape key before the subsequent key.
The hyphen "-" is not typed.

Getting Started

You can start editing a file by either specifing the filename on the command line, or once you get into the editor. If the file does not exist it will be created on save. The commands are as follows:

emacs filename & (From the command line )
C-x C-f (From within emacs)

Saving a File

C-x C-s to save without exiting.
C-x C-s to exit and be prompted to save if there have been changes.

File Navigation

M-> Go to the bottom of the file.
M-< Go to the top of the file.
C-v Down a page.
M-v Up a page.

Questions, comments, suggetions or corrections to bofh@bofh.com

http://www.bofh.com/unix-class/emacs.html