Craig's Handy "emacs" Guide

CURSOR POSITIONING

C-v      go forward a page
ESC v    go backward a page  (also Meta-V on X-terms, same with most ESC cmds)
C-n      go down one line (faster than Cursor-Down(?))
C-p      go up one line (faster than Cursor-Up(?))
C-l      make current cursor row be displayed in the middle of the screen
C-u      give numerical argument/repetition count to the next command
ESC >    go to the bottom of the document (Meta->)
ESC <    go to the top of the document (Meta-<)
ESC x goto-line    goto given line number of file (Meta-x)
ESC f    go forward one word (Meta-f)
ESC b    go backward one word (Meta-b)
C-a      go to the first column of the current line
C-e      go to the last column of the current line

TEXT MODIFICATION

C-_      undo the last change (may be Ctrl-? on some terminals) (repeatable)
C-q      insert the character of the next keystroke verbatim
C-d      delete the character under the cursor
DEL      detete the character immediately before the cursor (BS doesn't work!)
ESC DEL  delete the word immediately before the cursor (Meta-DEL)
C-t      transpose the two characters immediately before the cursor
C-x C-l or C-u  set the case (lower/upper) of the marked region
C-@      set marker to the current location (region is between mark and cursor)
C-x C-x  exchange current location and mark
C-w      delete text from current location to marker into the kill buffer
ESC w    copy text from current location to marker into the kill buffer (Meta)
C-k      delete to the end of the current line, delete line if already empty
C-y      "yank" (insert) the text in the kill buffer at the cursor location

SEARCH AND REPLACE

C-s      incremental search forward (type string, DEL, C-s, RETURN(?))
C-r      incremental search backward
ESC % replace-string RET string RET newstring RET
         Query-Replace every occurrence of string with newstring. (y/SPACE=yes,
         n/DEL=no, !=replace all remaining occurrences, q/ESC=quit)

FILE / WINDOW / BUFFER OPERATIONS

C-x C-c  exit from emacs
C-x C-s  save text to a file
C-x C-w  write text to a named file (then enter filename)
C-x C-f  find file (possibly in a buffer) (SPACE=show, TAB=complete, RETURN)
C-x o    cycle through the windows on the screen (not the buffers) (cmd is oh)
C-x 0    close current window (cmd is zero)
C-x b    find a buffer, edit it in the current window
C-x k    kill current buffer/window
C-x C-b  list all buffers (opens/uses second window on screen)
C-x i    insert a named file at the cursor position

MISCELLANEOUS

C-g      abort current emacs command
C-h      help (a most unfortunate choice of key)
ESC x    execute macro
ESC !    execute shell command
ESC x shell        execute sub-shell in current window
C-x (    start defining a keyboard macro
C-x )    finish defining a keyboard macro
C-x e    execute last defined keyboard macro (use with C-u to repeat)
ESC ~    set file status to not-modified