8.7 Blank Lines

Here are special commands and techniques for putting in and taking out blank lines.

C-o

Insert one or more blank lines after the cursor (open-line).

C-x C-o

Delete all but one of many consecutive blank lines (delete-blank-lines).

When you want to insert a new line of text before an existing line, you can do it by typing the new line of text, followed by <RET>. However, it may be easier to see what you are doing if you first make a blank line and then insert the desired text into it. This is easy to do using the key C-o (open-line), which inserts a newline after point but leaves point in front of the newline. After C-o, type the text for the new line. C-o F O O has the same effect as F O O <RET>, except for the final location of point.

You can make several blank lines by typing C-o several times, or by giving it a numeric argument to tell it how many blank lines to make. See Arguments, for how. If you have a fill prefix, the C-o command inserts the fill prefix on the new line, when you use it at the beginning of a line. See Fill Prefix.

The easy way to get rid of extra blank lines is with the command C-x C-o (delete-blank-lines). C-x C-o in a run of several blank lines deletes all but one of them. C-x C-o on a solitary blank line deletes that blank line. When point is on a nonblank line, C-x C-o deletes any blank lines following that nonblank line.