The simplest way to move the caret is to click the mouse at the desired location in the text area. The caret can also be moved using the keyboard.

The LEFT, RIGHT, UP and DOWN keys move the caret in the respective direction, and the PAGE_UP and PAGE_DOWN keys move the caret up and down one screen-full, respectively.

When pressed once, the HOME key moves the caret to the first non-whitespace character of the current screen line. Pressing it a second time moves the caret to the beginning of the current buffer line. Pressing it a third time moves the caret to the first visible line.

The END key behaves in a similar manner, going to the last non-whitespace character of the current screen line, the end of the current buffer line, and finally to the last visible line.

If soft wrap is disabled, a “screen line” is the same as a “buffer line”. If soft wrap is enabled, a screen line is a section of a newline-delimited buffer line that fits within the wrap margin width. See the section called “Wrapping Long Lines”.

C+HOME and C+END move the caret to the beginning and end of the buffer, respectively.

More advanced caret movement is covered in the section called “Working With Words”, the section called “Working With Lines” and the section called “Working With Paragraphs”.