Learning more about emacs

This Woodnotes guide doesn't even scratch the surface of the power of emacs, but for the writer or author interested in getting down to work, this should be more than enough to allow you to find and use the commands that you need most. There is far, far more about emacs than what's covered here. For example, emacs includes calendar functionality (even the Mayan calendar!), games (even Tetris!), a calculator, a datebook/planner, a fun psychiatrist, and more. If you want to, you can use emacs to read and compose your email, surf newsgroups, and so on. These things may not be immediately useful to writers, but if you decide you like emacs dive in and explore: it's a powerful tool.

If you're interested in learning more about this powerful software package, there are lots of options available to you. Of course, the program has its own help manuals and documentation available on screen. C-h ? will give you a list of all help commands and you can choose from there. In the GUI version of emacs, simply navigate the Help menu (on consoles, hit M-` to do the same thing). For example, as shown in the help menus, the command C-h k allows you to find out what command a particular key sequence is bound to, that is "what does C-x C-o do?" C-h b will show you all keybindings presently in use.

You can find new commands by using emacs' "apropos" utility. Enter M-x apropos and hit return. When emacs asks you for an expression, enter what you'd like to know more about, and it will present you a list of all commands that use that expression. For example hit M-x apropos, return, and then enter "ispell" (no quotes). You will see a list of a half a dozen commands, variables, and functions that include the word ispell, including check-ispell-version, checkdoc-ispell, and ispell-change-dictionary. All items shown as commands are available to you by entering M-x and the command name. Functions and variables are not very useful to anyone but emacs lisp programmers, for whom this document is not intended.

On the web, check out the GNU website: http://www.gnu.org, and the emacs wiki, a collaborative website with tips, tricks, and more: www.emacswiki.org. Just Googling for emacs will net you a plethora of websites where emacs fans share their tips.

A lot of us prefer books, and for a good reason. Start with the O'Reilly Guide Learning GNU Emacs by Debra Cameron, James Elliott, and Marc Loy, available in the computer section of your favorite bookstore or on line at www.oreilly.com. O'Reilly also produces a useful pocket reference guide (by Debra Cameron) with less explanation but a good list of the most-used commands and settings. Purchase of the books helps support the programmers that work on emacs, which is nice. Emacs itself has some useful information available to you. If you're using a GUI version of emacs, simply click on the help menu and browse through the FAQ or take the tutorial. From a console, access the menu using M-` (that's the back tick, located to the left of the number 1 on your keyboard) and wind your way through the menus. The tutorial is quite good and will help you gain confidence in using this particular piece of software, although it doesn't cover much more than the basics.

The best way to learn about emacs is simply to start using it. You'll quickly find solutions to your own problems, and the enormous emacs user community is usually more than happy to support you in your effort to learn it. Brace yourself, and come on board. Happy writing!

Thanks to Bill Harris, Kai Grossjohann, Chong Yidong (one of the authors of longlines.el), Johann "Myrkraverk" Oskarsson, Jerry Sievers, Marc Girod, Aidan Kehoe, and everyone else that supplied recommendations and additional resources for this document.

A companion reference card is available for this document at www.therandymon.com/papers/ emacs-writers-cheatsheet.pdf.