Emacs/docs/latest/emacs/Erasing

7.3 Erasing Text

DEL

BACKSPACE

Delete the character before point, or the region if it is active (delete-backward-char).
Delete: Delete the character after point, or the region if it is active (delete-forward-char).
C-d: Delete the character after point (delete-char).
C-k: Kill to the end of the line (kill-line).
M-d: Kill forward to the end of the next word (kill-word).
M-DEL

M-BACKSPACE

Kill back to the beginning of the previous word (backward-kill-word).

The DEL (delete-backward-char) command removes the character before point, moving the cursor and the characters after it backwards. If point was at the beginning of a line, this deletes the preceding newline, joining this line to the previous one.

If, however, the region is active, DEL instead deletes the text in the region. See Mark, for a description of the region.

On most keyboards, DEL is labeled BACKSPACE, but we refer to it as DEL in this manual. (Do not confuse DEL with the Delete key; we will discuss Delete momentarily.) On some text terminals, Emacs may not recognize the DEL key properly. See DEL Does Not Delete, if you encounter this problem.

The Delete (delete-forward-char) command deletes in the opposite direction: it deletes the character after point, i.e., the character under the cursor. If point was at the end of a line, this joins the following line onto this one. Like DEL, it deletes the text in the region if the region is active (see Mark).

C-d (delete-char) deletes the character after point, similar to Delete, but regardless of whether the region is active.

See Deletion, for more detailed information about the above deletion commands.

C-k (kill-line) erases (kills) a line at a time. If you type C-k at the beginning or middle of a line, it kills all the text up to the end of the line. If you type C-k at the end of a line, it joins that line with the following line.

See Killing, for more information about C-k and related commands.