Emacs has an extensive interactive help facility, but the facility assumes that you know how to manipulate Emacs windows and buffers. CTRL-h (backspace or CTRL-h) enters the Help facility. Help Tutorial (CTRL-h t) requests an interactive tutorial which can teach beginners the fundamentals of Emacs in a few minutes. Help Apropos (CTRL-h a) helps you find a command given its functionality, Help Character (CTRL-h c) describes a given character's effect, and Help Function (CTRL-h f) describes a given Lisp function specified by name.
Emacs's Undo can undo several steps of modification to your buffers, so it is easy to recover from editing mistakes.
GNU Emacs's many special packages handle mail reading (RMail) and sending (Mail), outline editing (Outline), compiling (Compile), running subshells within Emacs windows (Shell), running a Lisp read-eval-print loop (Lisp-Interaction-Mode), and automated psychotherapy (Doctor).
There is an extensive reference manual, but users of other Emacses should have little trouble adapting even without a copy. Users new to Emacs will be able to use basic features fairly rapidly by studying the tutorial and using the self-documentation features.
Emacs Options
The following options are of general interest:
8 file Edit file.
\+ number Go to the line specified by number (do not insert a space between the "+" sign and the number).
-q Do not load an init file.
-u " user" Load user's init file.
-t " file" Use specified file as the terminal instead of using stdin/stdout. This must be the first argument specified in the command line.
The following options are lisp-oriented (these options are processed in the order encountered):
8 -f " function" Execute the lisp function function.
-l " file" Load the lisp code in the file file.
The following options are useful when running Emacs as a batch editor:
8 -batch " commandfile" Edit in batch mode using the commands found in commandfile. The editor will send messages to stdout. This option must be the first in the argument list.
-kill Exit
Emacs while in batch mode.
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Using Emacs with X
Emacs has been tailored to work well with the X window system. If you run Emacs from under X windows, it will create its own X window to display in. You will probably want to start the editor as a background process so that you can continue using your original window.
Emacs can be started with the following X switches:
8 -rn " name" Specifies the program name which should be used when looking up defaults in the user's X resources. This must be the first option specified in the command line.
8 -name " name" Specifies the name which should be assigned to the Emacs window.
8 -r Display the Emacs window in reverse video.
-i Use the "kitchen sink" bitmap icon when iconifying the Emacs window.
-font " font, " -fn " font" Set the Emacs window's font to that specified by font. You will find the various X fonts in the /usr/lib/X11/fonts directory. Note that Emacs will only accept fixed width fonts. Under the X11 Release 4 font-naming conventions, any font with the value "m" or "c" in the eleventh field of the font name is a fixed width font. Furthermore, fonts whose name are of the form width x height are generally fixed width, as is the font fixed . See xlsfonts (1) for more information. When you specify a font, be sure to put a space between the switch and the font name.
-b " pixels" Set the Emacs window's border width to the number of pixels specified by pixels. Defaults to one pixel on each side of the window.
-ib " pixels" Set the window's internal border width to the number of pixels specified by pixels. Defaults to one pixel of padding on each side of the window.
8 -geometry " geometry" Set the Emacs window's width, height, and position as specified. The geometry specification is in the standard X format; see X (1) for more information. The width and height are specified in characters; the default is 80 by 24.
8 -fg " color" On color displays, sets the color of the text. See the file /usr/lib/X11/rgb.txt for a list of valid color names.
-bg " color" On color displays, sets the color of the window's background.
-bd " color" On color displays, sets the color of the window's border.
-cr " color" On color displays, sets the color of the window's text cursor.
-ms " color" On color displays, sets the color of the window's mouse cursor.
-d " displayname, " -display " displayname" Create the Emacs window on the display specified by displayname . Must be the first option specified in the command line.
-nw Tells Emacs not to use its special interface to X. If you use this switch when invoking Emacs from an xterm (1) window, display is done in that window. This must be the first option specified in the command line.
You can set X default values for your Emacs windows in your \.Xresources file (see xrdb (1)). Use the following format:
emacs.keyword:valuewhere value specifies the default value of keyword. Emacs lets you set default values for the following keywords:
8 font (class Font) Sets the window's text font.
reverseVideo (class ReverseVideo) If reverseVideo's value is set to on, the window will be displayed in reverse video.
bitmapIcon (class BitmapIcon) If bitmapIcon's value is set to on, the window will iconify into the "kitchen sink."
borderWidth (class BorderWidth) Sets the window's border width in pixels.
internalBorder (class BorderWidth) Sets the window's internal border width in pixels.
foreground (class Foreground) For color displays, sets the window's text color.
background (class Background) For color displays, sets the window's background color.
borderColor (class BorderColor) For color displays, sets the color of the window's border.
cursorColor (class Foreground) For color displays, sets the color of the window's text cursor.
pointerColor (class Foreground) For color displays, sets the color of the window's mouse cursor.
geometry (class Geometry) Sets the geometry of the Emacs window (as described above).
title (class Title) Sets the title of the Emacs window.
iconName (class Title) Sets the icon name for the Emacs window icon.
If you try to set color values while using a black and white display, the window's characteristics will default as follows: the foreground color will be set to black, the background color will be set to white, the border color will be set to grey, and the text and mouse cursors will be set to black.
Using the Mouse
The following lists the mouse button bindings for the Emacs window under X11. MOUSE BUTTON FUNCTION
left Set point.
middle Paste text.
right Cut text into X cut buffer.
SHIFT-middle Cut text into X cut buffer.
SHIFT-right Paste text.
CTRL-middle Cut text into X cut buffer and kill it.
CTRL-right Select this window, then split it into
two windows. Same as typing CTRL-x 2.
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CTRL-SHIFT-left X buffer menu--hold the buttons and keys down, wait for menu to appear, select buffer, and release. Move mouse out of menu and release to cancel.
CTRL-SHIFT-middle X help menu--pop up index card menu for
Emacs help.
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CTRL-SHIFT-right Select window with mouse, and delete all
other windows. Same as typing CTRL-x 1.
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Free Software Foundation 675 Mass Ave. Cambridge, MA 02139Your local Emacs maintainer might also have copies available. As with all software and publications from FSF, everyone is permitted to make and distribute copies of the Emacs manual. The TeX source to the manual is also included in the Emacs source distribution.
/usr/local/lib/emacs/$VERSION/etc/CCADIFF discusses GNU Emacs vs. CCA Emacs;
/usr/local/lib/emacs/$VERSION/etc/GOSDIFF discusses GNU Emacs vs. Gosling Emacs.
/usr/local/lib/emacs/$VERSION/etc/SERVICE lists people offering various services to assist users of GNU Emacs, including education, troubleshooting, porting and customization.
These files also have information useful to anyone wishing to write
programs in the Emacs Lisp extension language, which has not yet been fully
documented.
/usr/local/lib/emacs/lock - holds lock files that are made for all
files being modified in Emacs, to prevent simultaneous modification
of one file by two users.
/usr/local/lib/emacs/$VERSION/$ARCHITECTURE/cpp - the GNU cpp, needed
for building Emacs on certain versions of Unix where the standard cpp
cannot handle long names for macros.
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/usr/lib/X11/rgb.txt - list of valid X color names.
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Bugs that I know about are: shell will not work with programs running in Raw mode on some Unix versions.
Emacs is free; anyone may redistribute copies of Emacs to anyone under the terms stated in the Emacs General Public License, a copy of which accompanies each copy of Emacs and which also appears in the reference manual.
Copies of Emacs may sometimes be received packaged with distributions of Unix systems, but it is never included in the scope of any license covering those systems. Such inclusion violates the terms on which distribution is permitted. In fact, the primary purpose of the General Public License is to prohibit anyone from attaching any other restrictions to redistribution of Emacs.
Richard Stallman encourages you to improve and extend Emacs, and urges that you contribute your extensions to the GNU library. Eventually GNU (Gnu's Not Unix) will be a complete replacement for Berkeley Unix. Everyone will be able to use the GNU system for free.
Emacs was written by Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation. Joachim Martillo and Robert Krawitz added the X features.