| Most Emacs commands operate on the region defined by the //point//, which is the location of the cursor at any given time, and the //mark//, which is set with the command "C-space". To copy or cut a region of text, move the cursor to the start of the text area you are interested in and type "C-space". You will see "Mark set" in the echo area. Now move the cursor to the end of the text region (which moves the point) and type "M-w" for copy or "C-w" for cut (both called killing text). The text you copy or cut is stored by Emacs in the //kill-ring//, which is a circular buffer that stores the text snippets you kill in a last-in-first-out order. To paste the most recently stored text, move the cursor to where the text should be inserted, and type "C-y". The "y" stands for yank, what you'll see paste referred to in the Emacs help documentation (remember Emacs pre-dated modern windowing systems and other full-screen editors, so the terms cut and paste were not in use yet). After a yank ("C-y") command, you can replace the inserted text with earlier kills in turn by typing "M-y" one or more times. Each time you press "M-y" the next block of killed text is popped off of the kill ring and inserted into your buffer, replacing the last insert at the same time. | Most Emacs commands operate on the region defined by the //point//, which is the location of the cursor at any given time, and the //mark//, which is set with the command ''C-space''. To copy or cut a region of text, move the cursor to the start of the text area you are interested in and type ''C-space''. You will see "Mark set" in the echo area. Now move the cursor to the end of the text region (which moves the point) and type ''M-w'' for copy or ''C-w'' for cut (both called killing text). The text you copy or cut is stored by Emacs in the //kill-ring//, which is a circular buffer that stores the text snippets you kill in a last-in-first-out order. To paste the most recently stored text, move the cursor to where the text should be inserted, and type ''C-y''. The "y" stands for yank, what you'll see paste referred to in the Emacs help documentation (remember Emacs pre-dated modern windowing systems and other full-screen editors, so the terms cut and paste were not in use yet). After a yank (''C-y'') command, you can replace the inserted text with earlier kills in turn by typing ''M-y'' one or more times. Each time you press ''M-y'' the next block of killed text is popped off of the kill ring and inserted into your buffer, replacing the last insert at the same time. |
