emacs Basic Keybindings Cursor (point) movement
Example
In addition to cursor movements using the arrow keys, Home, End, Page up, and Page down, emacs defines a number of keystrokes that can move the cursor over smaller or larger pieces of text:
By character:
- Backward character: C-b
- Forward character: C-f
By word
- Backward word: M-b (i.e. Alt b, or Meta b)
- Forward word: M-f
By line:
- Beginning of current line: C-a
- Beginning of current line first(non-space)character:M-m
- End of current line: C-e
- Previous line: C-p
- Next line: C-n
Entire buffer:
- Beginning of buffer: M-<
- End of buffer: M->
By 'block', depending on context (mode):
Typical key bindings:
- Backward sentence/statement: M-a
- Forward sentence/statement: M-e
- Beginning of function: M-C-a
- End of function: M-C-e
Prefix arguments
In order to move several 'steps' at once, the movement commands may be given a prefix argument by pressing ESC or C-u and a number before the listed keystrokes. For C-u, the number is optional and defaults to 4.
E.g. ESC 3 C-n moves 3 lines down, while C-u M-f moves 4 words forward.
