As you type, the cursor always stays in front of (that is, to the right of) each letter that appears. The cursor points to your current position on the screen. Knowing the location of the cursor is important because any text you type will be entered at the position of the cursor, and any of the editing commands you perform are executed at the position of the cursor.

The following table contains several useful key commands for navigating and issuing special commands in Emacs. (Most terminal emulators allow use of the arrow keys for moving the cursor.)

 

Keyboard Cursor Control		Useful Key Commands
CTRL-p	Previous line	CTRL-x CTRL-s	Save your file
CTRL-n	Next line	CTRL-x CTRL-c	Exit emacs
CTRL-f	Forward one character	CTRL-l	Redraw screen
CTRL-b	Backward one character	CTRL-g	Abort command
META-f	Forward one word	CTRL-x I	Insert a file
META-b	Backward one word	DELETE	Deletes character to left of cursor (if keys are mapped properly)
CTRL-a	Beginning of line	CTRL –d	Deletes character to right of cursor
CTRL-e	End of line	META-DELETE	Kills back to beginning of a word
META-a	Beginning of sentence	META-d	Kills up to the end of a word
META-e	End of sentence	CTRL-k	Kills to the end of a line
CTRL-v	Move forward one screen	META-k	Kills to the end of current sentence
META-v	Move backward one screen	CTRL-y	Yanks back most recent killed item
		META-y	Cycles through stored killed items
		CTRL-x u	Reverse most recent editing change

  ** Note: Most ordinary keyboards do not have a "meta" key. Use the ESC key instead. M-x or META-x means press the ESC key, release it, and press the "x" key. **