The GNU Emacs Text Editor

This page was prepared for the University of Chicago Library CRT Emacs class.

How to Learn GNU Emacs

1. Read my Introduction to Emacs. It takes a different approach from most other introductions, in trying to cover fundamental Emacs concepts in detail, rather than trying to cover Emacs keystrokes. While this may not be incredibly exciting, I believe it is the best way to start out, because Emacs is an extremely regular, consistant and well-documented editor: if you understand the fundamental concepts, you can easily teach yourself any Emacs details.
2. (Optional:) Read and work through an Emacs book. There are many available. Here are a few:
   • Richard M. Stallman. GNU Emacs Manual. Ninth edition, Version 19. Cambridge, Mass: Free Software Foundation, August 1993 (or later). This is the official Emacs manual, written by the author of the Emacs software. It's very well done and tutorial in nature, and completely suitable for non-technical computer people, in my opinion. The complete text is available on the Web. However, you may prefer one of the books below, written with the assumption that this one is "too hard".
   • Debra Cameron and Bill Rosenblatt. Learning GNU Emacs. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly and Associates, 1991. A good introduction. Covers version 18 only. There may be a new edition.
   • Michael A. Schoonover et al. GNU Emacs: Unix Text Editing and Programming. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1992.
3. Do the online Emacs tutorial. This is available within Emacs; type:

   C-h t
   

   It's best to run this tutorial from an 80 by 24 window.

Other GNU Emacs Resources on the Web

• The Emacs character set.
• The very well done GNU Emacs FAQ.
• The GNU Emacs Reference Card (also available in PostScript).
• There are many Usenet newsgroups devoted to Emacs:
  • comp.emacs: general Emacs topics; covers GNU and non-GNU Emacsen.
  • gnu.emacs.help: general help for Gnu Emacs users.
  • gnu.emacs.announce: announcements of GNU Emacs news (upgrades, bugs, etc).
  • comp.emacs.xemacs: discussion of the X-Emacs implemementation.
  • gnu.emacs.bug: discussion of GNU Emacs bugs and how to fix them.
  • gnu.emacs.gnus: discussion of the GNUS Usenet newsreader that runs within Emacs.
  • gnu.emacs.sources: for postings of new Emacs programs (written in Emacs Lisp).
  • alt.religion.emacs: religious arguments about Emacs; one of the homes of the perennial Emacs vs. vi flamefests, etc.