Notation

In this document we adopt the standard Emacs notation to describe keystrokes. It is very important to become familiar with this notation, because it is routinely used in all standard Emacs documents which you can find on the Internet.

C-x = press the Ctrl key, hold it and press x.

M-x = press the Alt (or Meta) key, hold it and press x.

C-M-x = press and hold Ctrl, then add Alt (Meta) and then x. You should have three keys down at the end.

RET = Enter or Return key.

SPC = the space bar

ESC = the escape key

As an exercise, how would you execute the following command C-x C-f? Indeed, press Ctrl first and keep it down while you press x first and then f. Another example may be M-%. Since the symbol % can be solely executed by pressing Shift and 5, the M-% command is executed by first pressing Alt, then Shift and finally 5. To learn about the most important Emacs commands which you definitely use for typing your source codes, read the following section.