C for Control key (also labeled as CTL or CTRL on keyboards)
M for Meta key (also labeled as EDIT, ALT or COMMAND on keyboards)
if your keyboard doesn't have this key, just press and release ESC for the same purpose.
C-<chr> means hold the Control key while typing the key chr.
M-<chr> means hold the Meta key while typing the key char.
M-<chr1> M-<chr2> means doing M-<chr> twice.
you could instead of hitting 4 keystrokes, just press Meta key while typing chr1 first and chr2 after.
DEL means, on most popular keyboard, the backspace key (not the delete itself).
C-v view next screen
v for arrow down side
M-v view previous screen
C-l clear the screen and centralize the page around the cursor.
repeat once to put the cursor on bottom and twice to put it on top.
C-p move cursor to previous line
C-n move cursor to next line
C-b move cursor one char backward
C-f move cursor one char forward
M-f move cursor one word forward
M-b move cursor one word backward
C-a move cursor to the beginning of the line (remember that a is the very first letter of the Latin alphabet).
C-e move cursor to the end of the line.
M-a move cursor to the beginning of the sentence
M-e move cursor to the end of the sentence
M-< move cursor to the beginner of the text
< for arrow left side
M-> move cursor to the end of text
> for arrow right side
DEL delete a char before cursor
C-d delete a char after cursor
M-DEL kill the word right before the cursor
M-d delete the word right after the cursor
C-k kill from the current cursor position until the end of the line
M-k kill from the current cursor position until the end of the sentence
C-x C-f find a file
C-x C-s save the file
C-x C-b list buffers
C-x b switch buffer
C-x s ask for each changed buffers whether to save it or not
C-x 1 closes all windows other than the current one
C-x 2 split the current window in two horizontal ones
C-x 3 split the current window in two vertical ones
C-x o change to other window
C-x 0 close the current window
C-M-v scroll the other window
C-u n command mostly repeat command n times.
you could shortly type
M-n command
C-g escape or exit any current command
C-SPC navigation-command mark a region, usually to be killed or deleted
C-y yank back (reinsert) the killed text
C-x u undo the last command. The same as C-_.
most shortly, you could type
C-/for the same purpose.
C-x C-c close Emacs session
C-s search forward
C-r reverse search, i.e., search backward
C-h ? ask for help in a generic sense
C-h c command ask for a brief help for command. Ex.: C-h c C-p shows "C-p runs the command previous-line"
C-h k command get more details about command