GNU Emacs Manual

Chapter 6: Help

Emacs provides extensive help features accessible through a single character, C-h. C-h is a prefix key that is used only for documentation-printing commands. The characters that you can type after C-h are called help options. One help option is C-h; that is how you ask for help about using C-h. To cancel, type C-g. The function key F1 is equivalent to C-h.

C-h C-h (help-for-help) displays a list of the possible help options, each with a brief description. Before you type a help option, you can use SPC or DEL to scroll through the list.

C-h or F1 means ``help'' in various other contexts as well. For example, in query-replace, it describes the options available. After a prefix key, it displays a list of the alternatives that can follow the prefix key. (A few prefix keys don't support this because they define other meanings for C-h.)

Most help buffers use a special major mode, Help mode, which lets you scroll conveniently with SPC and DEL.