On-line documentation

The help command, C-h, provides a variety of useful documentation. The character following C-h indicates the specific kind of service desired; the descriptions of several of these follow.

C-h a

prompts for a pattern (regular expression) and displays a buffer containing all commands whose name contains a match to that pattern, together with a short description and the key sequence to which the command is bound, if any.

C-h b

displays a buffer containing all bindings of commands to keys. The display is in two parts: the global bindings that apply by default in any buffer, and the local bindings that apply only when one is in the current buffer, and override any global binding in that buffer.

C-h f

prompts for a function name and then displays its full documentation in a buffer.

C-h C-h

documents the help command itself.

C-h i

runs the `info' documentation reader (see below).

C-h k

prompts for a command key sequence and describes the function invoked by that sequence.

C-h m

prints documentation about the mode of the current buffer.

C-h t

puts you into an Emacs tutorial.

C-h w

prompts for a function name and tells what key, if any, invokes it.

In addition, there is a simple interface to the standard UNIX `man' command.

M-x manual-entry

prompts for a topic (a UNIX command or subprogram name, usually), and displays the man page for it, if any, in a buffer. The buffer is a perfectly ordinary buffer; you may put the cursor in it and move around using ordinary Emacs navigational commands.