emacs Command: Tutorial & Examples

Edit text files with the Emacs editor

Emacs is a text editor for Linux and other Unix-based operating systems. It is a highly customizable and extensible editor, with a wide range of features for editing text and programming code.

To start Emacs, you can open a terminal and type emacs followed by the name of the file you want to edit. For example, to edit a file named file.txt, you would enter emacs file.txt in the terminal.

Once inside Emacs, you can use a variety of keyboard shortcuts and commands to navigate, edit, and save your files. Some common Emacs commands include:

Saving a file: Ctrl+x Ctrl+s
Opening a new file: Ctrl+x Ctrl+f
Cut, copy, paste: Ctrl+w, Ctrl+y, Ctrl+k
Undo: Ctrl+x u
Search and replace: Ctrl+s, Ctrl+r
Exit emacs: Ctrl+x Ctrl+c

Emacs also has a powerful built-in help system, which you can access by typing Ctrl+h followed by a command. For example, typing Ctrl+h a will open the emacs manual, and typing Ctrl+h t will open the tutorial.

Emacs is a text editor that is known for its extensibility, there are many plug-ins and packages available for Emacs that can add new features and functionality. Some of these plug-ins are aimed at programmers and developers, while others are geared towards writing, data entry and more. Some of the most popular package are:

org-mode: an organizer and note-taking tool
magit: a Git integration package
flycheck: a syntax checking package

Emacs is a powerful and flexible text editor that can be customized to suit the needs of different users. It is widely used by many Linux admins.

emacs Command: Tutorial & Examples

Further Reading