4 Moving Text Within a Window

Sometimes you are looking at a screenful of text, and only part of the current paragraph you are reading is visible on the screen. The commands detailed in this section are used to shift which part of the current node is visible on the screen.

SPC (scroll-forward)

NEXT

Shift the text in this window up. That is, show more of the node which is currently below the bottom of the window. With a numeric argument, show that many more lines at the bottom of the window; a numeric argument of 4 would shift all of the text in the window up 4 lines (discarding the top 4 lines), and show you four new lines at the bottom of the window. Without a numeric argument, SPC takes the bottom two lines of the window and places them at the top of the window, redisplaying almost a completely new screenful of lines. If you are at the end of a node, SPC takes you to the “next” node, so that you can read an entire manual from start to finish by repeating SPC.

The NEXT key is known as the PageDown key on some keyboards.

C-v (scroll-forward-page-only)

Shift the text in this window up. This is identical to the SPC operation above, except that it never scrolls beyond the end of the current node.

M-x scroll-forward-page-only-set-window

Scroll forward, like with C-v, but if a numeric argument is specified, it becomes the default scroll size for subsequent scroll-forward and scroll-backward commands and their ilk.

DEL (scroll-backward)

PREVIOUS

Shift the text in this window down. The inverse of scroll-forward. If you are at the start of a node, DEL takes you to the “previous” node, so that you can read an entire manual from finish to start by repeating DEL. The default scroll size can be changed by invoking the (scroll-backward-page-only-set-window) command with a numeric argument.

If your keyboard lacks the DEL key, look for a key called BS, or ‘Backspace’, sometimes designated with an arrow which points to the left, which should perform the same function.

The PREVIOUS key is the PageUp key on many keyboards. Emacs refers to it by the name PRIOR.

M-v (scroll-backward-page-only)

Shift the text in this window down. The inverse of scroll-forward-page-only. Does not scroll beyond the start of the current node. The default scroll size can be changed by invoking the scroll-backward-page-only-set-window command with a numeric argument.

M-x scroll-backward-page-only-set-window

Scroll backward, like with M-v, but if a numeric argument is specified, it becomes the default scroll size for subsequent scroll-forward and scroll-backward commands.

M-x down-line

Scroll forward by one line. With a numeric argument, scroll forward that many lines.

M-x up-line

Scroll backward one line. With a numeric argument, scroll backward that many lines.

M-x scroll-half-screen-down

Scroll forward by half of the screen size. With a numeric argument, scroll that many lines. If an argument is specified, it becomes the new default number of lines to scroll for subsequent scroll-half-screen-down and scroll-half-screen-up commands.

M-x scroll-half-screen-up

Scroll back by half of the screen size. With a numeric argument, scroll that many lines. If an argument is specified, it becomes the new default number of lines to scroll for subsequent scroll-half-screen-down and scroll-half-screen-up commands.

The scroll-forward and scroll-backward commands can also move forward and backward through the node structure of the file. If you press SPC while viewing the end of a node, or DEL while viewing the beginning of a node, what happens is controlled by the variable scroll-behavior (see scroll-behavior).

The scroll-forward-page-only and scroll-backward-page-only commands never scroll beyond the current node.

C-l (redraw-display)

Redraw the display from scratch, or shift the line containing the cursor to a specified location. With no numeric argument, ‘C-l’ clears the screen, and then redraws its entire contents. Given a numeric argument of n, the line containing the cursor is shifted so that it is on the nth line of the window.

C-x w (toggle-wrap)

Toggles the state of line wrapping in the current window. Normally, lines which are longer than the screen width wrap, i.e., they are continued on the next line. Lines which wrap have a ‘\’ appearing in the rightmost column of the screen. You can cause such lines to be terminated at the rightmost column by changing the state of line wrapping in the window with C-x w. When a line which needs more space than one screen width to display is displayed, a ‘$’ appears in the rightmost column of the screen, and the remainder of the line is invisible. When long lines are truncated, the mode line displays the ‘$’ character near its left edge.