NOTES ON EMACS

C-h t

→ launch the Emacs tutorial.

C-h k <key>

→ explicit the shortcut <key>.

C-h f <func>

→ explicit the function <func>.

C-h w <func>

→ give the shortcut corresponding to function <func>.

C-h m

→ help about the current text mode.

C-x C-f

→ open a new file.

C-x C-s

→ save the file.

C-x C-w

→ save the file under a different name.

C-x C-b

→ open a new buffer (useful to open files closed during the current session).

C-x C-c

→ close all windows and quit Emacs.

C-x 5 2

→ open a new frame.

C-x 5 0

→ close the frame.

C-x 2

→ open a new window below.

C-x 3

→ open a new window on the left.

C-x 1

→ close all other window except the current one.

C-x o

→ move the cursor to the other windows.

C-x left

→ open the previous file in the buffer.

C-x right

→ open the next file in the buffer.

M-F8

→ resize the frame (this is a Ubuntu shortcut).

C-x }

→ move to the right the vertical bar splitting a frame (opened with C-x 3).

C-x {

→ move to the left the vertical bar splitting a frame (opened with C-x 3).

C-u 1 C-x 3

→ split the frame horizontally in two windows, with the right one 1.618 times wider. This is not a standard emacs command, it is implemented in my .emacs.

C-x r m <name>

→ save the current file in a bookmark.

C-x r b <name>

→ open a bookmark.

C-x r l

→ list the saved bookmarks:

d

→ mark the file to be erased;

x

→ erase all the marked files;

r

→ rename the bookmark;

s

→ save the bookmark file.

C-v

→ go to the next page.

M-v

→ go to the previous page.

M-f

→ go to the next word.

M-b

→ go to the previous word.

C-a

→ go to the beginning of the line.

C-e

→ go to the end of the line.

M-<

→ go to the beginning of the document.

M->

→ go to the end of the document.

C-f

→ go to the next character.

C-b

→ go to the previous character.

C-n

→ go to the next line.

C-p

→ go to the previous line.

C-l

→ center the window on the cursor.

C-x C-u

→ convert the selected text to upper case.

C-x C-l

→ convert the selected text to lower case.

M-x sort-lines

→ sort the selected lines by alphabetical order.

M-x reverse-region

→ invert the order of the lines.

.

→ any character except \n.

\.

→ the character ..

+

→ search the expression once or more.

*

→ search the expression 0 times or more.

?

→ search the expression 0 or 1 times.

^...

→ beginning of a line.

...$

→ end of a line.

\b

→ borders of a word.

[0-9]+

→ one or several digits.

[^0-9]+

→ one or several non-digits.

[A-za-z]+

→ one or several letters.

[;A-Z-z0-9]+

→ one or several characters of the ensemble: letter, digite or ;.

C-s

→ forward search.

C-r

→ backward search.

M-g g <num>

→ go to line <num>.

M-%

→ replace a sequence of characters:

• y to remplace the current sequence and go to the next one;
• n to go to the next sequence without replacing the current one;
• ! to replace everything at once.

M-s o <exp>

→ search all the lines containing <exp>.

M-s h p <word>

→ highlight all occurrences of <word>.

M-s h r <exp>

→ highlight all occurrences of <exp>.

M-s h l

→ highlight all the lines containing an occurrence of <exp>.

M-s h u

→ cancel the highlighting.

C-x h

→ select the whole window.

C-SPC

→ initialize text selection (set a marker).

M-w

→ copy the selected text.

C-w

→ copy and cut the selected text.

C-y

→ paste the copied text.

M-y

→ after C-y, this command remplaces the cut text by the previous copy (can iteratively work).

C-k

→ copy and cut the end of a line.

M-DEL

→ copy and cut the word to the left of the cursor.

M-d

→ copy and cut the word to the right of the cursor.

C-x r t

→ cut a rectangle of text between the cursor and the marker.

C-x r y

→ paste the copied rectangle of text.

1. Go to the upper left corner of the text to be selected;
2. C-SPC;
3. Go to the lower right corner of the text to be selected;
4. C-x SPC.
5. Once the rectangle is selected, you can do C-x r t and enter a string that will appear on each line of the rectangle.

Several sequences to be pasted can be save in memory.

1. Select a text sequence with C-SPC.
2. C-x r s <id> to copy. The ID <id> of the sequence can be a single character.
3. At the desired location, C-x r i <id> pastes the sequence.

C-x TAB

→ indent the selected text (you then need to use the arrows to choose the indentation size; 4 characters in Python).

C-u <N> C-x TAB

→ indent the selected text by <N> characters (<N> can be negative).

1. Select a region with C-SPC.
2. C-x r t.
3. Enter a string that will be placed at the beginning.

This command also allows us to add a column of characters in the middle or at the end of a text. The position of the insertion depends on the abscissa of the cursor at the beginning (x1) and at the end of the selection (x2). If x1≠x2, the column (max(x1,x2),|x2-x1|) is suppressed before inserting the new string. The command C-x r k allows us to remove the column (max(x1,x2),|x2-x1|).

M-x delete-trailing-whitespace

→ erase all the blanks at the end of a line.

M-x ispell

→ launch the check.

M-x ispell-change-dictionnary

→ change the dictionnary (TAB to print the list).

M-$

→ verify the spelling of the word at the cursor position.

M-x flyspell-mode

→ launch the spell check on the fly.

M-=

→ prints the number of lines, words and characters of a selection of of the whole buffer.

Bullets lists

→ SPC followed by one of the characters: -, +, *.

Numbered lists

→ SPC followed by 1. or 1).

Description lists

→ bullet lists with a description followed by ::.

M-RET

→ create the next element in the list.

S-left or S-right

→ change the bullet or number style.

[X] Defining a box

→ after the bullet, type [ ].

[X] Defining a counter

→ type [0/0] at the first line above the list to count the number of checkmarks.

[ ] C-c C-c

→ check/uncheck the box at the current line.

[-] C-u C-u C-c C-c

→ intermediate state of the box.

C-c -

→ create a line of ----.

TAB

→ create the next line or move to the next cell.

C-c |

→ create a new empty table (prompt for dimensions) or convert text to a table.

C-c C-c

→ align the table.

M-S-left

→ erase the current column.

M-S-right

→ insert a new column to the left.

M-S-up

→ erase the current row.

M-S-down

→ insert a new row above..

M-x org-table-export

→ start exportation to a file (prompt).

orgtbl-to-csv

→ save to a CSV file.

orgtbl-to-latex

→ save as a LaTeX table.

orgtbl-to-tsv

→ save to a TSV file.

orgtbl-to-html

→ save to HTML.

C-c +

→ give the sum of the numbers in the current column.

Fonts can be modified by putting two similar symbols on each side of the text:

*bold*

→ bold;

/italic/

→ italic;

_underline_

→ underline;

+barred+

→ barred;

=verbatim=

→ verbatim;

~overline~

→ overline (my alias).

a^1

→ a¹;

b_2

→ b₂.

• Greek letters and math symbols can be typed with LaTeX commands: α, β, ∫, etc.
• Other useful symbols are given in Table 1.

Table 1: LaTeX symbols (remove the + sign).

LaTeX	ORG
\ + checkmark	✓
\ + pound	£
\ + cent	¢
\ + yen	¥
\ + euro	€
\ + S	§
\ + copy	©
\ + laquo	«
\ + raquo	»
\ + pm	±
\ + odot	o
\ + times	×
\ + to	→
\ + gets	←
\ + uarr	↑
\ + darr	↓
\ + harr	↔
\ + lArr	⇐
\ + rArr	⇒
\ + hArr	⇔
\ + gg	≫
\ + ll	≪
\ + ge	≥
\ + le	≤
\ + radic	√
\ + prop	∝
\ + infty	∞
\ + approx	≈
\ + ne	≠

A LaTeX equation will be exported (to PDF or HTML) as a compiled equation:

\begin{equation} F = \int f(x)\,dx. \end{equation}

Horizontal lines can be traced with 5 consecutive dashes:

---

It is possible to execute source code blocks within org mode.

1. Write a piece of code between #+BEGIN_SRC <language> and #+END_SRC.
2. C-c C-c ⇒ execute the code and write the results in a #+RESULTS: field.

The most useful language environments are: emacs-lisp, shell, awk, python, F90.

If one or several source blocks are in an org file, tangling consists in writing a file with this code. C-c C-v t does the job. The

---

official Emacs manual and Lisp programming tutorial.

~/.emacs.

1. M-x load-file;
2. ~/.emacs.

Use ELPA and MELPA :

M-x list-packages

→ lists the packages that can be installed. Then, click on the name of the package and on the install button.

Installing a <package>.el

→ by hand:

1. download <package>.el and put it in ~/.emacs.d/lisp/;
2. in Emacs, type M-x byte-compile-file RET, and select ~/.emacs.d/lisp/<package>.el; this creates ~/.emacs.d/lisp/<package>.elc;
3. add in ~/.emacs the instructions: (require '<package>) and (<package>-initialize).

M-x list-colors-display

→ show the available colors.

C-M-(

→ create a pair (). If a text is selected this pair encompasses it.

C-M-{

→ same for {}.

C-M-[

→ same for [].

C-M-'

→ same for ''.

C-M-"

→ same for "".

M-p s

→ select the text between two delimiters.

M-p l

→ select the current line.

M-p b

→ select the current block.

M-p d

→ insert the date in a file.

F7

→ open neotree.

F1

→ open list of useful shortcuts.

M-p f

→ M-x follow-mode when a frame is split into two windows, the rest of the file is displayed in the second window.

F8

→ undo the window configuration.

C-F8

→ redo a window configuration.