What is the “point”? =)

In Emacs jargon, the “point” is what you probably think of as the “cursor” in other programs.

You move the point tons of ways, but the most obvious are motion commands:

Command	Key Combination
Next line	C-n
Previous line	C-p
Next character	C-f
Previous character	C-b

Next word	M-f
Previous word	M-b

Beginning of line	C-a
End of line	C-e

Beginning of buffer	M-<
End of buffer	M->

You can also use the arrow keys to move the point
- Learning the above keys will be much faster in the long run, though

What is the “mark”?

The mark is an invisible location that you set in the text. It is multi-purpose:
- In conjunction with the point, it defines a region (“selection”) of text
- It can be used to store a position in the text that you can jump quickly to it
Set the mark with C-space

Killing and yanking back text from the kill ring

Kill the text between the mark and the point with C-w
Copy the text between the mark and the point with M-w
Yank text back from the kill ring with C-y

Other Mark Operations

Swap the mark and the point with C-x C-x
- Great for temporary “bookmarks”

Transient Mark Mode

In Emacs 23+, transient-mark-mode is the default mode.
If you disable transient-mark-mode, the region is not visible, but can still be used
- This is useful in situations where you frequently use the mark for purposes other than just killing and yanking text
transient-mark-mode can be toggled by executing the function transient-mark-mode:
- M-x transient-mark-mode