All characters between hexadecimal 20 and 7E (blank through tilde), and all characters between hexadecimal A0 and FE (right hand graphics) are self-inserting. They are inserted into the buffer at the current location of dot, and dot moves 1 character to the right.

The Tab (or C-I) key is also self-inserting. By default, MicroEMACS has fixed tab settings at columns 9, 17, 25, and so on, but you can change the tab width using the set-tab-size command.

Any self-inserting character can be given an argument. This argument is used as a repeat count, and the character is inserted that number of times. This is useful for creating lines of * characters of a specific length, and other pseudo-graphic things.

Self-inserting keys are all bound to the function ins-self. As with any key, these keys can be rebound to other functions, but this is not always advisable.

Word wrapping can be performed by binding a key to the ins-self-with-wrap function. This function is described in the Paragraphs section.

C-M, Return (ins-nl)

The Return key works just like you would expect it to work; it inserts a newline character. Lines can be split by moving into the middle of the line, and inserting a newline.

On some terminals with slow displays, if dot is positioned at end of line, and the line after the current line is a blank line, then C-M does not insert a newline, but simply moves to the first position on the following line. This lets you create a block of blank space (perhaps using C-O and then type text into it. This "feature" can be enabled at compile-time by setting the "NLMOVE" definition to 1 in def.h.

[unbound] (ins-nl-and-indent)

This command is like a C-M with indentation. It inserts a new line, and then inserts enough tabs and spaces to duplicate the indentation of the previous line. This is useful for entering heavily-indented programs in structured languages like PASCAL or C.

[unbound] (borland-indent)

This command is like a ins-nl-and-indent, but also attempts to indent according to the coding standards in use at Borland in the 1990s. If the previous line starts with {, or an argument of four (i.e. a single Control-U) is specified, indent by four spaces. If an argument of 16 (i.e. two Control-Us) is specified, reduce indentation by four spaces. Otherwise retain the same indentation.

C-J (gnu-indent)

This command is like a ins-nl-and-indent, but also attempts to indent according to the GNU coding standards in use at Cygnus in the 1990s. If the previous line starts with {, if, while, for, else, case, or an argument of four (i.e. a single Control-U) is specified, indent by two spaces. If an argument of 16 (i.e. two Control-Us) is specified, reduce indentation by two spaces. Otherwise retain the same indentation.

[unbound] (vmware-indent)

This command is like a ins-nl-and-indent, but also attempts to indent according to the coding standards in use at VMware in the 2000s. If the previous line starts with {, or an argument of four (i.e. a single Control-U) is specified, indent by three spaces. If an argument of 16 (i.e. two Control-Us) is specified, reduce indentation by three spaces. Otherwise retain the same indentation.

[unbound] (ruby-indent)

This command is like a ins-nl-and-indent, but also attempts to indent according to commonly accepted Ruby conventions. If the previous line starts with { or one of the many block-start keywords, or an argument of four (i.e. a single Control-U) is specified, indent by two spaces. If an argument of 16 (i.e. two Control-Us) is specified, reduce indentation by two spaces. Otherwise retain the same indentation.

C-O (ins-nl-and-backup)

This command creates blank lines. To be precise, it inserts a newline by doing a C-M, and then backs up by doing a C-B. If dot is at the start of a line, this will leave dot sitting on the first character of a new blank line.

C-Q, C-X Q (quote)

Characters which are special to MicroEMACS can be inserted by using this command. The next character after the C-Q or C-X Q is stripped of any special meaning. It is simply inserted into the current buffer. Any argument specified on the C-Q or C-X Q command is used as the insert repeat count.

The C-Q form of the command is the easiest to use. However, some terminals demand that MicroEMACS perform XON/XOFF processing. If this is the case, the C-Q will be eaten by low level terminal support, and will not be usable as a command. The C-X Q form can always be used.

C-T (twiddle)

Exchange the two characters on either side of the dot. If the the dot is at the end of the line, twiddle the two characters before it. Does nothing if the dot is at the beginning of the line. This command is supposedly useful for correcting common letter transpositions while entering new text.

M-Tab (set-tab-size)

Set the tab size to the value of the argument, which must be a positive number greater than 1 (the default tab size is 8). This only affects the how MicroEMACS displays tabs on the screen; it does not affect how tabs are saved when a file is written to disk. To change how MicroEMACS handles tabs when saving a file, see the set-save-tabs command.

M-I (set-save-tabs)

By default, MicroEMACS preserves tabs when it writes a file to disk. If you pass a zero argument to this command, MicroEMACS will convert tabs to spaces when writing a file; the number of spaces is determined by the tab size (which you can set using set-tab-size). If you pass a non-zero argument to this command, MicroEMACS will revert back to the default behavior, which is to preserve tabs.

[unbound] (just-one-space)

If the dot is currently sitting over a tab or a space, all consecutive tabs and spaces to the left and right of the dot are deleted. Then a single space is inserted, and the dot is moved 1 character to the right.