Intro to Emacs

Emacs FTW!

glennstovall:

Emacs is a wonderful, powerful text editor, but it can take some getting used to. Here are some of the commands you need to know to go from n00b to a text-editing ninja:

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Taken from my answer to this question

Key: C = Ctrl, M = Esc. (Protip: if you are a heavy emacs user, switch your caps lock key to an esc key to make the commands a lot easier)

Basic Text Editing

C-w : Cut 
M-w : Copy
C-y : Paste
C-x s : save
C-x c : save all and close

Navigating Through a File

M-b : back one word
M-f : foward one word
C-a : beginning of line
C-e : end of line
C-n : next line
C-p : previous line
M-< : beginning of buffer
M-> : end of buffer

Using Multiple Files

C-x C-f : find file
C-x b : switch buffer
C-x k : kill buffer
C-x 2 : split-window-vertically
C-x 3 : split-window-horizontally
C-x o : switch window
C-x 0 : kill this window
C-x 1 : kill all other windows

Other Handy Commands

C-s : search
C-r : search backward
M-/ : autocomplete word (based on previous words in the file)
M-x : align-regexp
M-( : start keyboard macro
M-) : end keyboard macro
C-x e: execute keyboard macro.

but this is just scratching the surface. If you have any other questions about using emacs, feel free to ask!