DEL, BACKSPACE

Delete the character before point, or the region if it is active (delete-backward-char).

Delete

Delete the character or grapheme cluster 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. 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. 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 (Mark). If the character after point is composed with following characters and displayed as a single display unit, a so-called grapheme cluster representing the entire sequence, Delete deletes the entire sequence in one go. This is in contrast to DEL which always deletes a single character, even if the character is composed. C-d (delete-char) deletes the character after point, similar to Delete, but regardless of whether the region is active. 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. Killing, for more information about C-k and related commands.