The C-q prefix, ASCII Control Characters and Caret Notation

Occasionally you may see weird characters that begin with the caret symbol, ^ , in your buffer. For example in the Emacs help documentation you will see ^L written in different placed throughout the buffer. What exactly do these symbols mean?

In this video we explore ASCII control character and how they relate to caret notation. We also delve into the C-q  Emacs prefix and how you can use it to insert characters into the buffer.

Video Contents:
0:17 – Motivation – Caret notation within Emacs
1:07 – The ASCII table
2:19 – A deeper look into control characters
4:42 – The C-q prefix
7:41 – Customising the C-q radix