Is there a way to make alt-f and alt-b jump word forward and backward instead of printing ƒ and ∫ on Mac?

macos emacs key-bindings
ayckoster picture ayckoster · Nov 22, 2013 · Viewed 11.5k times · Source

I understand that Mac has some Emacs keybindings enabled by default (e.g. Ctrl+A move to beginning of line etc.). If I open TextEdit for example I can navigate like in Emacs.

But when I try Alt+F or Alt+b for move to next word or last word it does not work. It prints out ƒ and ∫ instead.

Is there a way to jump words instead?

I think that I did not tinker with the keybindings and I use the US layout on a german keyboard.

Answer

Arran Cudbard-Bell picture Arran Cudbard-Bell · Aug 1, 2015

If you want to re-enable them for the terminal

Terminal -> Preferences -> Keyboard

Check 'Use Option as Meta key'

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