Many Emacs commands are accessed via key combinations such as
Meta+X
, yet the Macintosh keyboard does not have a Meta key. Instead of key combinations with Meta, you can use the
Esc
key as described in Using the keyboard. If you do not want to use the
Esc
key, you can specify a key to use as Meta. To specify a Meta key, select the Emulation tab of the Editor Preferences dialog.
To specify
Command
as the Emacs Meta key, select
The Command key acts as the Emacs Meta key
.
Note: this setting prevents the
Command
key from performing most of its normal shortcuts. Commonly-used Macintosh key commands now invoke Emacs commands. For instance,
Command+X
and
Command+C
no longer do cut and copy. Emacs cut and copy commands are, of course, available.
To specify
Alt
as the Emacs Meta key, select
The Alt key acts as the Emacs Meta key.
Note that this means some useful Macintosh key commands such as
Alt+3
(which enters
#
on a UK Macintosh keyboard) are not directly available. To use such a system-defined
Alt
key gesture, invoke the editor command
Quoted Insert
followed by the gesture. For example, to enter #, type
Control+Q Alt+3
. This editor command makes only the next gesture be interpreted in the system-defined way. Thereafter
Alt
again acts as the Emacs Meta key.