This is intended as an introductory guide for vi users wishing to learn the basics of Emacs. I'm writing it because I'm one of them, and I suspect that I'm not alone in being mystified by the lack of a command mode, text objects and an underlying ex editor, as well as the plethora of strange and unfamiliar key combinations. The intent is to give fledgling Emacs users a basic set of commands, sufficient for basic editing.
This page is not a joke. It is not about religion. It does not condone the Editor war and I will not present one editor as better than the other. Neither is it about the Emacs mindset, since I have yet to acquire it myself. Finally, it is not a proper Emacs tutorial. If you want to learn Emacs propely, go find a proper tutorial.
It is a basic Emacs survival guide for the vi user. It is grounded in familiarity of vi and (quite naturally) assumes a vi-centric view of the world. Since the structure is that of a list of corresponding commands, I will not list features that are unique to Emacs. I believe there to be sufficient overlap between the capabilities of each editor to motivate this approach.
Emacs doesn't have a separate command mode. In a sense, you're always in insert mode. Therefore, special modifier keys are needed to tell commands apart from typed characters. The two commonly used modifiers are Control and Meta. On many systems, the Alt key can be used as Meta. If your system lacks a functional Meta key, you can type Escape before the specified key.
Since Control and Meta are so frequently used in Emacs, they have created a special convention for writing such commands, so for example C-a corresponds to Control+A, and M-f corresponds to Meta+F. The Emacs command column will use this convention. This is also consistent with the documentation in Emacs.
| Action | gi | Emacs | Notes on Emacs |
| Exit program | :q | C-x C-c | If changes exist, will ask whether or not to save them. |
| Unconditionally exit program | :q! | C-x C-c | Just say no. |
| Save current buffer and exit program | :wq | C-x C-s C-x C-c | |
| Cancel command | Ctrl+C | C-g | |
| Redraw screen | Ctrl+L | C-l | |
| Command line | : | M-x |
| Action | vi | Emacs | Notes on Emacs |
| Open file, or create named buffer | :e filename | C-x C-f filename | |
| Save current buffer | :w | C-x C-s | Will not save a new, unmodified file. |
| Save current buffer under new name | :w filename | C-x C-w filename | |
| Move to next buffer | :n | C-x b buffer | |
| Move to previous buffer | :prev | C-x b Enter |
| Action | vi | Emacs | Notes on Emacs |
| Go to beginning of buffer | 1G | M-< | |
| Go to end of buffer | G | M-> | |
| Go left one character | h | C-b or Left | Will wrap to previous line. |
| Go right one character | l | C-f or Right | Will wrap to next line. |
| Go up one line | k | C-p or Up | |
| Go down one line | j | C-n or Down | |
| Go to line n | nG | M-x goto-line Enter n | |
| Go to beginning of line | 0 | C-a | |
| Go to end of line | $ | C-e | Places cursor one step beyond last character. |
| Go to next word | w | M-f | Stops at first non-word character before the word. |
| Go to previous word | b | M-b | |
| Go to next page | Ctrl+f | C-v or PageUp | |
| Go to previous page | Ctrl+b | M-v or PageDn | |
| Set mark x | mx | C-x r Space x or M-x point-to-register Enter x |
|
| Go to mark x | 'x | C-x r j x or M-x register-to-point Enter x | |
| Go to first displayed line | H | Unknown | |
| Go to last displayed line | L | Unknown | |
| Move buffer one line up | Ctrl+y | C-1 M-v | |
| Move buffer one line down | Ctrl+e | C-1 C-v |
| Action | vi | Emacs | Notes on Emacs |
| Insert text | i | Always in insert mode. | |
| Append text | a | C-f | Only cursor movement is needed. |
| Insert at beginning of line | I | C-a | Only cursor movement is needed. |
| Append to end of line | A | C-e | Only cursor movement is needed. |
| Delete character forwards | x | C-d or Delete | |
| Delete character backwards | X | Backspace | |
| Change to end of line | C | C-k | Only deletion is needed. |
| Delete to end of line | D | C-k | Removes line entirely if empty. |
| Delete entire line | dd | C-a C-k or C-a C-k C-k | The former for empty lines, the latter for non-empty lines. |
| Delete word forwards | dw | M-d | Does not delete whitespace before next word. |
| Delete word backwards | db | M-Backspace | |
| Open line above | O | C-a Enter C-p | |
| Open line below | o | C-e Enter | |
| Join lines | J | C-n C-a Backspace | |
| Undo last edit | u | C-x u |
| Action | vi | Emacs | Notes on Emacs |
| Yank line | yy | C-a C-k or C-a C-k C-k | The former for empty lines, the latter for non-empty lines. |
| Yank n lines | nyy | C-Space (move to line below last desired) M-w | |
| Cut n lines | ndd | C-Space (move to line below last desired) C-w | |
| Paste before cursor | P | C-y | |
| Paste after cursor | p | Unknown |
| Action | vi | Emacs | Notes on Emacs |
| Search forwards | /pattern | C-s pattern | |
| Search backwards | ?pattern | C-r pattern |
This page was partly inspired by Emacs for Vi Programmers.
Thanks to Kaj, magda, Ian D, LeViMS and C. Warrington for Emacs commands.
© elmindreda