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Emacs editing environment, Part 1: Learn the basics of Emacs

Get going with this famous open source editor

Michael Stutz, Author, Consultant

Michael Stutz is author of The Linux Cookbook, which he also designed and typeset using only open source software. His research interests include digital publishing and the future of the book. He has used various UNIX operating systems for 20 years.

Summary: Master the Emacs editor and delve into the depths of its most advanced editing commands that have made it famous. The open source Emacs editor (one of the powerhouses of UNIX® computing) is a large, complex application that does everything from editing text to functioning as a complete development environment. It's rich in features and is unlike any other program you're likely to have encountered, especially in the way you specify and input commands. This tutorial, the first in a series, gets you going by providing a concise, hands-on introduction to the most important Emacs editing concepts and features.

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Date: 20 Mar 2007
Level: Introductory

Activity: 40040 views
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Before you start

Learn what to expect from this tutorial, and how to get the most out of it.

About this series

The Emacs editing environment is a favorite of UNIX® developers. It's known around the world as the king of editors, but many users find it has a bit of a learning curve. The Emacs environment doesn't seem intuitive at first glance, and it doesn't work like other editors and word processors. But learning Emacs doesn't have to be difficult. Once you get going, you'll see how intuitive it is and become more comfortable with it after each use. This tutorial series shows you the way, taking you from the basics of Emacs, such as its features, philosophy, key-command layout, and methods for editing text, through many of its powerful editing features.

After completing this series, you'll be able to comfortably use Emacs for everyday editing, be well on your way to Emacs proficiency, and have a good feel for many of the advanced capabilities of Emacs.

About this tutorial

The first part of this tutorial focuses on the history and origin of Emacs and the later part explains how to:

Start and stop Emacs
Manipulate files and read them in for editing
Use basic editing keys
Move through documents
Use the powerful Emacs text-marking routines
Use the mouse for editing and selection

Objectives

The primary objective of this tutorial is to introduce you to the Emacs editor, give you a concise introduction to the application and its design philosophy, and show you how to be productive in this editing environment.

Upon completion of this tutorial, you'll have learned everything you need to know to perform basic text editing with Emacs.

Prerequisites

Previous knowledge of Emacs is not required to benefit from this tutorial; however, you should have a basic understanding of what text editors and word processors do. Although this tutorial is written for all levels of UNIX expertise, it's helpful if you have an understanding of the UNIX filesystem, including:

Files
Directories
Permissions
Filesystem hierarchy

System requirements

This tutorial requires a user account on any UNIX-based system that has a recent copy of Emacs installed.

There are several varieties of Emacs; the original and most popular is GNU Emacs, which is published online by the GNU Project (see Resources).

You should have a recent copy of GNU Emacs -- one that is at version 20 or greater. Versions 20 and 21 are the most commonly available, and development snapshots of version 22 are also available. This tutorial works with any of these versions for Emacs. If your system is running something older, it's time to upgrade.

To know what version of Emacs you have running, use the GNU-style --version flag, as follows:

$ emacs --version
GNU Emacs 22.0.91.1
Copyright (C) 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
GNU Emacs comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
You may redistribute copies of Emacs
under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
For more information about these matters, see the file named COPYING.
$

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