23 Working with Windows

Creating Horizontal Windows

C-x 2 (for split-window-vertically)

If you wanted to edit dickens and joyce, you would type emacs dickens joyce and Emacs would display these files in two horizontal windows. If you try this with more than two files, Emacs displays two horizontal windows, with a file in one and a list of buffers in the other.

A number of the “other window” commands are just the ordinary command with a 4 inserted in it. For example, to find a file in another window, type C-x 4 f. (If only one window is currently open, Emacs opens another one.) To select a different buffer in another window, type C-x 4 b. Many users find these commands preferable to the normal C-x C-f and C-x b commands because they save you a step: you need not move to the window, give a command, and move back.

Once you’ve got multiple windows open, it’s helpful to be able to scroll them without moving there. To scroll the other window, type C-M-v.

Moving Between Windows

C-x o (o stands for other in this command)

Getting Rid of Windows

Deleting a window only means that it isn’t displayed anymore; it doesn’t delete any of the information or any of your unsaved changes. The underlying buffer is still there, and you can switch to it using C-x b. To delete the window you’re in, type C-x 0 (zero). If you want to delete all windows but the one you’re working on, type C-x 1 (one), meaning “make this my one and only window.” As you’d expect, the remaining window “grows” to fill up the rest of the space. You can also delete all windows on a certain buffer by typing: M-x delete-windows-on Enter buffername Enter.