RE: copying and pasting in emacs

[Drew Adams]

> > I am unable to figure out how to select and copy text as 
> > you would do in another editors:
> >
> > For example, one thing I normally need to do is select from the
> > current position upto the next few words. Normally, I just 
> > press shift + ctrl and the left or right arrow key and the
> > editor would highlight one word at a time. I have so far been
> > unable to figure out how to highlight text in emacs using the
> > keyboard.
> >
> > Anyone knows how I can do it esp. highlighting one word, 
> > line etc. at a time.
> 
> See cua-mode and related stuff 
> (http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/CuaMode)


CUA mode is not for everyone, and is not necessarily the best place to start
looking into this question, IMO.

This is the overall category - active "region" means (~) "selection":
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs-en?CategoryRegion

(I just added CuaMode to that page, BTW; it was missing.)

These are some entries at that page which are good starting points:

* http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs-en/Region - meaning and behavior of the region

* http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs-en/DefaultKillingAndYanking - vanilla Emacs
behavior and terminology for copy/paste

* http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs-en/CopyAndPaste - alternatives (including CUA
mode) to the vanilla Emacs copy/paste behavior

See also the Emacs manual, node Transient Mark:
http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Transient-Mark.html#Tra
nsient-Mark

My own recommendation (not CUA mode), FWIW:

* http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs-en/DeleteSelectionMode