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I'm familiar with M being the modifier key in Emacs syntax but I'm reading the instructions for a package and it is telling me to prepend the modifier with A.

A-M-n

I've tried a few different things but I can't see to find what A is refering to here?

Drew
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Philip Kirkbride
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  • See the Emacs manual, node [User Input](https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/User-Input.html). See also node [Windows Keyboard](https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Windows-Keyboard.html). – Drew Nov 21 '19 at 21:18
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    Possible duplicate of [what is the \`A-\` binding?](https://emacs.stackexchange.com/questions/44889/what-is-the-a-binding) – phils Nov 21 '19 at 22:50

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Emacs recognizes 5 modifier keys (arguably 6 depending on how you feel about Shift):

<Control> (C-), <Meta> (M-), <Super> (s-), <Hyper> (H-), and <Alt> (A-).

This capital A means that this key-sequence uses the uncommon <Alt> modifier. Since your Alt key, if you even have one, is most likely used for the <Meta> modifier, you probably do not have a key currently mapped to work as this modifier. However, you can simulate its use with the key sequence C-x @ a. In this case, C-x @ a M-n is equivalent to A-M-n. (The similar key sequences C-x @ h and C-x @ s are equivalent to using the <Hyper> and <Super> modifiers, respectively.)

It's worth noting that it is possible to rebind modifier keys to work as different modifiers. For example, on Windows, the Alt key can be rebound to work as the <Alt> modifier by setting the variable w32-alt-is-meta to a nil value.

D. Gillis
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