Paragraph and Text Formatting Commands

[Home] [Commands] [Variables] [Macro-Dev] [Glossary]

PARAGRAPH AND TEXT FORMATTING COMMANDS

Commands that operate on paragraphs, and the layout of paragraphs:

Paragraph

Paragraphs are separated by blank lines. A single paragraph is defined as all of the text enclosed between two blank lines, with no intervening blank lines.

backward-paragraph(2) (esc p) Move the cursor to the previous paragraph
fill-paragraph(2) (esc o) Format a paragraph
forward-paragraph(2) (esc n) Move the cursor to the next paragraph
ifill-paragraph(3) (esc q) Format a paragraph
kill-paragraph(2) Delete a paragraph
paragraph-to-line(3) Convert a paragraph to a single line
wrap-word(2) Wrap word onto next line

Regions and Marks

A region is the text located between the point (the current cursor position) and the mark defined by set-mark.

bin-copy-region(3) Binary supporting copy region
bin-yank(3) Binary supporting kill buffer insert
copy-rectangle(3) Copy a rectangular region of text
copy-region(2) (esc w) Copy a region of the buffer
count-words(2) (esc C-c) Count the number of words in a region
exchange-point-and-mark(2) (C-x C-x) Exchange the cursor and marked position
goto-alpha-mark(2) (C-x a) Move the cursor to a alpha marked location
kill-rectangle(2) (esc C-w) Delete a column of text
kill-region(2) (C-w) Delete all characters in the marked region
set-alpha-mark(2) (C-x C-a) Place an alphabetic marker in the buffer
set-mark(2) (esc space) Set starting point of region
write-region(3) Write contents of region to named (new) file
yank-rectangle(2) (esc C-y) Insert a column of text
yank-rectangle-overwrite(3) Insert a column of text with overwrite

Variables

$buffer-fill-col(5) Buffer paragraph mode; right fill column
$buffer-fill-mode(5) Buffer paragraph mode; justification method
$fill-bullet(5) Paragraph filling bullet character set
$fill-bullet-len(5) Paragraph filling bullet search depth
$fill-col(5) Global paragraph mode; right fill column
$fill-eos(5) Paragraph filling; end of sentence fill characters
$fill-eos-len(5) Paragraph filling; end of sentence padding length
$fill-ignore(5) Ignore paragraph filling character(s)
$fill-mode(5) Global paragraph mode; justification method

Ref: Paragraph and Text Formatting Commands File: me.0 Date: 2026/03/05