a clear shortcut

When sharing terminal screens in video conferencing, I often see people typing

clear

in the shell to clear the screen. There is a better way.

Since as long as I can remember, possibly dating back to the advent of GNU Bash and its readline line editor, Ctrl-L has been present to clear the screen. To use it, press

Ctrl-L

or, on macOS, I guess,

⌘-L

that’s the Control or Command key along with the letter L.

The historically minded will remember that Ctrl-L is the ␌ ASCII form-feed character that would eject a page when sent to a Teletype.