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Emacs commands generally involve the control key (sometimes labelled CTRL or CTL) or the meta key (sometimes labelled ALT). This guide will use the following abbreviations for these keys:

C-chr

means hold down the control key and type the character chr.

M-chr

means hold down the alt key and type the character. Some keyboards do not have an alt key, or it does not work properly. In this case, press and release the escape key and then type the character.

For example, if we say C-x C-c, it means hold down the control key while pressing x and then c. If we say C-x c you should hold down control only during the x. Then relese the control key and press c.