13.8.3 Inserting and deleting text

The editor provides a sophisticated range of commands for cutting text which are described in Cutting, copying and pasting using the kill ring. However, the two basic commands for deleting text which you should remember are as follows:

• To erase the previous character, use the Backspace key.
• To erase the next character, use Ctrl+D or the Delete key if available.

You can insert text into a buffer by typing characters, or by pasting (see Cutting, copying and pasting using the kill ring) or by inserting the contents of a file.

By default, when typing in a buffer, any characters to the right of the cursor are moved further to the right. If you wish to overwrite these characters, rather than preserve them, press the Insert key. To return to the default behavior, just press the Insert key once more.

To insert the contents of one file into another, choose File > Insert... . A dialog appears so that you can choose a file to insert, and this is then inserted into the current buffer, starting from the current position of the cursor.