How to select and delete a column of text in emacs?

Question

I have this text

1 A
2 B
3 C

I want to remove the first column to make it

A
B
C

Ok so I need to make a rectangle. Reading about rectangles I see

"To specify a rectangle for a command to work on, set the mark at one corner and point at the opposite corner. The rectangle thus specified is called the region-rectangle. If point and the mark are in the same column, the region-rectangle is empty. If they are in the same line, the region-rectangle is one line high."

I go to line 1 column 1 and set the mark with C-SPC. I go to the end of the rectangle at line 3 column 2 (to include column 1 only). Then I do C-w. It kills everything up to C:

 C

Obviously it included columns 2 and 3. How to prevent this and only select column 1?

Answer 1

C-w kills the text between point and mark; it’s the normal command you would use to kill text. C-x r k kills the rectangle between point and mark. This is the one you want to use.

Answer 2

If you select the rectangle, which in Emacs terms means make it an active rectangular region, then C-w does just what you expect.

Use C-x SPC to activate a rectangular region that you want to kill. Then just use C-w, the usual key for killing the active region.

To select a rectangular region, do one of the following:

• Put point and mark at opposite corners (the same thing you'd need to do to be able to use C-x r k) and then hit C-x SPC.

• Use C-x SPC first (that activates an empty rectangular region), and then move point to the opposite corner, extending the selection as you move the cursor.

• Drag C-M-mouse-1 to select the rectangle. (Thanks to @pst for pointing this out in a comment here.) For this, you need Emacs 27 or later.

Answer 3

If you use evil, I've found evil-visual-block bound to C-v to be the most straightforward.

• C-v to enter visual block mode
• Arrows (or preferred movement) to select column/rectangular region
• d delete