Control-X

In computing, control-X is a control character in ASCII code, also known as the cancel (CAN) character. It is generated by pressing the X key while holding down the Ctrl key on a computer keyboard. The equivalent Mac OS key combination on Apple computers is Command-X (or Apple-X).

Relation to Cut

In many GUI environments, including Windows Explorer, GNOME, KDE, XFCE and most other desktop environments based on the X Window System, and in applications such as word processing software running in those environments, Control-X can be used to cut highlighted text to the clipboard. Control-X was one of a handful of keyboard sequences chosen by the program designers at Xerox PARC to control text editing. Presumably these particular keystrokes were chosen because of their location on a standard QWERTY keyboard, since the Z (undo), X (cut), C (copy), and V (paste) keys are located together at the left end of the bottom row of the standard QWERTY keyboard.

Software that uses this binding

• Microsoft Office
• OpenOffice.org
• Corel
• KOffice
• ...and many other open source or closed source programs.

Representation

• ASCII and Unicode representation of "Cancel":

  Octal code: 30

  Decimal code: 24

  Hexadecimal code: 18, U+0018

  Mnemonic symbol: CAN

Films

This command was used in the beginning of the film "the matrix" when Neo is trying to get rid of a screen that he does not understand, this however would be completely useless in this situation. The proper key combination if Neo was running a Unix based system would be Ctrl-C.

See also

• Control-C
• Control-V
• Control-Z