This is Info file ../info/emacs, produced by Makeinfo-1.55 from the input file emacs.texi.  File: emacs, Node: Text Mode, Next: Outline Mode, Prev: Case, Up: Text Text Mode ========= When you edit files of text in a human language, it's more convenient to use Text mode rather than Fundamental mode. Invoke `M-x text-mode' to enter Text mode. In Text mode, TAB runs the function `tab-to-tab-stop', which allows you to use arbitrary tab stops set with `M-x edit-tab-stops' (*note Tab Stops::.). Features concerned with comments in programs are turned off in Text mode except when explicitly invoked. The syntax table is changed so that periods are not considered part of a word, while apostrophes, backspaces and underlines are part of words. A similar variant mode is Indented Text mode, intended for editing text in which most lines are indented. This mode defines TAB to run `indent-relative' (*note Indentation::.), and makes Auto Fill indent the lines it creates. The result is that normally a line made by Auto Filling, or by LFD, is indented just like the previous line. In Indented Text mode, only blank lines separate paragraphs--indented lines continue the current paragraph. Use `M-x indented-text-mode' to select this mode. Text mode, and all the modes based on it, define `M-TAB' as the command `ispell-complete-word', which performs completion of the partial word in the buffer before point, using the spelling dictionary as the space of possible words. *Note Spelling::. Entering Text mode or Indented Text mode runs the hook `text-mode-hook'. Other major modes related to Text mode also run this hook, followed by hooks of their own; this includes Nroff mode, TeX mode, Outline mode and Mail mode. Hook functions on `text-mode-hook' can look at the value of `major-mode' to see which of these modes is actually being entered. *Note Hooks::. * Menu: Emacs provides two other modes for editing text that is to be passed through a text formatter to produce fancy formatted printed output. * Nroff Mode:: The major mode for editing input to the formatter nroff. * TeX Mode:: The major modes for editing input to the formatter TeX. Another mode is used for editing outlines. It allows you to view the text at various levels of detail. You can view either the outline headings alone or both headings and text; you can also hide some of the headings at lower levels from view to make the high level structure more visible. * Outline Mode:: The major mode for editing outlines.  File: emacs, Node: Outline Mode, Next: TeX Mode, Prev: Text Mode, Up: Text Outline Mode ============ Outline mode is a major mode much like Text mode but intended for editing outlines. It allows you to make parts of the text temporarily invisible so that you can see the outline structure. Type `M-x outline-mode' to switch to Outline mode as the major mode of the current buffer. When Outline mode makes a line invisible, the line does not appear on the screen. The screen appears exactly as if the invisible line were deleted, except that an ellipsis (three periods in a row) appears at the end of the previous visible line (only one ellipsis no matter how many invisible lines follow). All editing commands treat the text of the invisible line as part of the previous visible line. For example, `C-n' moves onto the next visible line. Killing an entire visible line, including its terminating newline, really kills all the following invisible lines along with it; yanking it all back yanks the invisible lines and they remain invisible. Outline minor mode provides the same commands as the major mode, Outline mode, but you can use it in conjunction with other major modes. Type `M-x outline-minor-mode' to enable the Outline minor mode in the current buffer. You can also specify this in the text of a file, with a file local variable of the form `mode: outline-minor' (*note File Variables::.). The major mode, Outline mode, provides special key bindings on the `C-c' prefix. Outline minor mode provides similar bindings with `C-c @' as the prefix; this is to reduce the conflicts with the major mode's special commands. (The variable `outline-minor-mode-prefix' controls the prefix used.) Entering Outline mode runs the hook `text-mode-hook' followed by the hook `outline-mode-hook' (*note Hooks::.). * Menu: * Format: Outline Format. What the text of an outline looks like. * Motion: Outline Motion. Special commands for moving through outlines. * Visibility: Outline Visibility. Commands to control what is visible. * Views: Outline Views. Outlines and multiple views.  File: emacs, Node: Outline Format, Next: Outline Motion, Up: Outline Mode Format of Outlines ------------------ Outline mode assumes that the lines in the buffer are of two types: "heading lines" and "body lines". A heading line represents a topic in the outline. Heading lines start with one or more stars; the number of stars determines the depth of the heading in the outline structure. Thus, a heading line with one star is a major topic; all the heading lines with two stars between it and the next one-star heading are its subtopics; and so on. Any line that is not a heading line is a body line. Body lines belong with the preceding heading line. Here is an example: * Food This is the body, which says something about the topic of food. ** Delicious Food This is the body of the second-level header. ** Distasteful Food This could have a body too, with several lines. *** Dormitory Food * Shelter Another first-level topic with its header line. A heading line together with all following body lines is called collectively an "entry". A heading line together with all following deeper heading lines and their body lines is called a "subtree". You can customize the criterion for distinguishing heading lines by setting the variable `outline-regexp'. Any line whose beginning has a match for this regexp is considered a heading line. Matches that start within a line (not at the left margin) do not count. The length of the matching text determines the level of the heading; longer matches make a more deeply nested level. Thus, for example, if a text formatter has commands `@chapter', `@section' and `@subsection' to divide the document into chapters and sections, you could make those lines count as heading lines by setting `outline-regexp' to `"@chap\\|@\\(sub\\)*section"'. Note the trick: the two words `chapter' and `section' are equally long, but by defining the regexp to match only `chap' we ensure that the length of the text matched on a chapter heading is shorter, so that Outline mode will know that sections are contained in chapters. This works as long as no other command starts with `@chap'. It is possible to change the rule for calculating the level of a heading line by setting the variable `outline-level'. The value of `outline-level' should be a function that takes no arguments and returns the level of the current heading. Some major modes such as C, Nroff, and Emacs Lisp mode set this variable in order to work with Outline minor mode. Outline mode makes a line invisible by changing the newline before it into an ASCII control-M (code 015). Most editing commands that work on lines treat an invisible line as part of the previous line because, strictly speaking, it *is* part of that line, since there is no longer a newline in between. When you save the file in Outline mode, control-M characters are saved as newlines, so the invisible lines become ordinary lines in the file. But saving does not change the visibility status of a line inside Emacs.  File: emacs, Node: Outline Motion, Next: Outline Visibility, Prev: Outline Format, Up: Outline Mode Outline Motion Commands ----------------------- Outline mode provides special motion commands that move backward and forward to heading lines. `C-c C-n' Move point to the next visible heading line (`outline-next-visible-heading'). `C-c C-p' Move point to the previous visible heading line (`outline-previous-visible-heading'). `C-c C-f' Move point to the next visible heading line at the same level as the one point is on (`outline-forward-same-level'). `C-c C-b' Move point to the previous visible heading line at the same level (`outline-backward-same-level'). `C-c C-u' Move point up to a lower-level (more inclusive) visible heading line (`outline-up-heading'). `C-c C-n' (`next-visible-heading') moves down to the next heading line. `C-c C-p' (`previous-visible-heading') moves similarly backward. Both accept numeric arguments as repeat counts. The names emphasize that invisible headings are skipped, but this is not really a special feature. All editing commands that look for lines ignore the invisible lines automatically. More powerful motion commands understand the level structure of headings. `C-c C-f' (`outline-forward-same-level') and `C-c C-b' (`outline-backward-same-level') move from one heading line to another visible heading at the same depth in the outline. `C-c C-u' (`outline-up-heading') moves backward to another heading that is less deeply nested.  File: emacs, Node: Outline Visibility, Next: Outline Views, Prev: Outline Motion, Up: Outline Mode Outline Visibility Commands --------------------------- The other special commands of outline mode are used to make lines visible or invisible. Their names all start with `hide' or `show'. Most of them fall into pairs of opposites. They are not undoable; instead, you can undo right past them. Making lines visible or invisible is simply not recorded by the undo mechanism. `C-c C-t' Make all body lines in the buffer invisible (`hide-body'). `C-c C-a' Make all lines in the buffer visible (`show-all'). `C-c C-d' Make everything under this heading invisible, not including this heading itself (`hide-subtree'). `C-c C-s' Make everything under this heading visible, including body, subheadings, and their bodies (`show-subtree'). `C-c C-l' Make the body of this heading line, and of all its subheadings, invisible (`hide-leaves'). `C-c C-k' Make all subheadings of this heading line, at all levels, visible (`show-branches'). `C-c C-i' Make immediate subheadings (one level down) of this heading line visible (`show-children'). `C-c C-c' Make this heading line's body invisible (`hide-entry'). `C-c C-e' Make this heading line's body visible (`show-entry'). `C-c C-q' Hide everything except the top N levels of heading lines (`hide-sublevels'). `C-c C-o' Hide everything except for the heading or body that point is in, plus the headings leading up from there to the top level of the outline (`hide-other'). Two commands that are exact opposites are `C-c C-c' (`hide-entry') and `C-c C-e' (`show-entry'). They are used with point on a heading line, and apply only to the body lines of that heading. Subheadings and their bodies are not affected. Two more powerful opposites are `C-c C-d' (`hide-subtree') and `C-c C-s' (`show-subtree'). Both expect to be used when point is on a heading line, and both apply to all the lines of that heading's "subtree": its body, all its subheadings, both direct and indirect, and all of their bodies. In other words, the subtree contains everything following this heading line, up to and not including the next heading of the same or higher rank. Intermediate between a visible subtree and an invisible one is having all the subheadings visible but none of the body. There are two commands for doing this, depending on whether you want to hide the bodies or make the subheadings visible. They are `C-c C-l' (`hide-leaves') and `C-c C-k' (`show-branches'). A little weaker than `show-branches' is `C-c C-i' (`show-children'). It makes just the direct subheadings visible--those one level down. Deeper subheadings remain invisible, if they were invisible. Two commands have a blanket effect on the whole file. `C-c C-t' (`hide-body') makes all body lines invisible, so that you see just the outline structure. `C-c C-a' (`show-all') makes all lines visible. These commands can be thought of as a pair of opposites even though `C-c C-a' applies to more than just body lines. The command `C-c C-q' (`hide-sublevels') hides all but the top level headings. With a numeric argument N, it hides everything except the top N levels of heading lines. The command `C-c C-o' (`hide-other') hides everything except the heading or body text that point is in, plus its parents (the headers leading up from there to top level in the outline). You can turn off the use of ellipses at the ends of visible lines by setting `selective-display-ellipses' to `nil'. Then there is no visible indication of the presence of invisible lines.  File: emacs, Node: Outline Views, Prev: Outline Visibility, Up: Outline Mode Viewing One Outline in Multiple Views ------------------------------------- You can display two views of a single outline at the same time, in different windows, by means of an alternative implementation of Outline mode called `noutline'. To do this, first load the library `noutline' with `M-x load-library RET noutline RET'. This loads the alternative implementation of Outline mode. It provides the same command names and key bindings as regular Outline mode, but it implements them differently. Then, to display a second view of an outline buffer, you must create an indirect buffer using `M-x make-indirect-buffer'. The first argument of this command is the existing outline buffer name, and its second argument is the name to use for the new indirect buffer. *Note Indirect Buffers::. Once the indirect buffer exists, you can display it in a window in the normal fashion, with `C-x 4 b' or other Emacs commands. The Outline mode commands to show and hide parts of the text operate on each buffer independently; as a result, each buffer can have its own view. If you want more than two views on the same outline, create additional indirect buffers. In a future Emacs version, the alternative `noutline' implementation will probably become the principal implementation.  File: emacs, Node: TeX Mode, Next: Nroff Mode, Prev: Outline Mode, Up: Text TeX Mode ======== TeX is a powerful text formatter written by Donald Knuth; it is also free, like GNU Emacs. LaTeX is a simplified input format for TeX, implemented by TeX macros; it comes with TeX. SliTeX is a special form of LaTeX. Emacs has a special TeX mode for editing TeX input files. It provides facilities for checking the balance of delimiters and for invoking TeX on all or part of the file. TeX mode has three variants, Plain TeX mode, LaTeX mode, and SliTeX mode (these three distinct major modes differ only slightly). They are designed for editing the three different formats. The command `M-x tex-mode' looks at the contents of the buffer to determine whether the contents appear to be either LaTeX input or SliTeX input; if so, it selects the appropriate mode. If the file contents do not appear to be LaTeX or SliTeX, it selects Plain TeX mode. If the contents are insufficient to determine this, the variable `tex-default-mode' controls which mode is used. When `M-x tex-mode' does not guess right, you can use the commands `M-x plain-tex-mode', `M-x latex-mode', and `M-x slitex-mode' to select explicitly the particular variants of TeX mode. * Menu: * Editing: TeX Editing. Special commands for editing in TeX mode. * LaTeX: LaTeX Editing. Additional commands for LaTeX input files. * Printing: TeX Print. Commands for printing part of a file with TeX. * Getting: TeX Distrib. Getting the latest Unix TeX distribution.  File: emacs, Node: TeX Editing, Next: LaTeX Editing, Up: TeX Mode TeX Editing Commands -------------------- Here are the special commands provided in TeX mode for editing the text of the file. `"' Insert, according to context, either ```' or `"' or `''' (`tex-insert-quote'). `LFD' Insert a paragraph break (two newlines) and check the previous paragraph for unbalanced braces or dollar signs (`tex-terminate-paragraph'). `M-x validate-tex-region' Check each paragraph in the region for unbalanced braces or dollar signs. `C-c {' Insert `{}' and position point between them (`tex-insert-braces'). `C-c }' Move forward past the next unmatched close brace (`up-list'). In TeX, the character `"' is not normally used; we use ```' to start a quotation and `''' to end one. To make editing easier under this formatting convention, TeX mode overrides the normal meaning of the key `"' with a command that inserts a pair of single-quotes or backquotes (`tex-insert-quote'). To be precise, this command inserts ```' after whitespace or an open brace, `"' after a backslash, and `''' after any other character. If you need the character `"' itself in unusual contexts, use `C-q' to insert it. Also, `"' with a numeric argument always inserts that number of `"' characters. In TeX mode, `$' has a special syntax code which attempts to understand the way TeX math mode delimiters match. When you insert a `$' that is meant to exit math mode, the position of the matching `$' that entered math mode is displayed for a second. This is the same feature that displays the open brace that matches a close brace that is inserted. However, there is no way to tell whether a `$' enters math mode or leaves it; so when you insert a `$' that enters math mode, the previous `$' position is shown as if it were a match, even though they are actually unrelated. TeX uses braces as delimiters that must match. Some users prefer to keep braces balanced at all times, rather than inserting them singly. Use `C-c {' (`tex-insert-braces') to insert a pair of braces. It leaves point between the two braces so you can insert the text that belongs inside. Afterward, use the command `C-c }' (`up-list') to move forward past the close brace. There are two commands for checking the matching of braces. LFD (`tex-terminate-paragraph') checks the paragraph before point, and inserts two newlines to start a new paragraph. It prints a message in the echo area if any mismatch is found. `M-x validate-tex-region' checks a region, paragraph by paragraph. When it finds a paragraph that contains a mismatch, it displays point at the beginning of the paragraph for a few seconds and sets the mark at that spot. Scanning continues until the whole buffer has been checked or until you type another key. Afterward, you can use the mark ring to find the last several paragraphs that had mismatches (*note Mark Ring::.). Note that Emacs commands count square brackets and parentheses in TeX mode, not just braces. This is not strictly correct for the purpose of checking TeX syntax. However, parentheses and square brackets are likely to be used in text as matching delimiters and it is useful for the various motion commands and automatic match display to work with them.  File: emacs, Node: LaTeX Editing, Next: TeX Print, Prev: TeX Editing, Up: TeX Mode LaTeX Editing Commands ---------------------- LaTeX mode, and its variant, SliTeX mode, provide a few extra features not applicable to plain TeX. `C-c C-o' Insert `\begin' and `\end' for LaTeX block and position point on a line between them. (`tex-latex-block'). `C-c C-e' Close the last unended block for LaTeX (`tex-close-latex-block'). In LaTeX input, `\begin' and `\end' commands are used to group blocks of text. To insert a `\begin' and a matching `\end' (on a new line following the `\begin'), use `C-c C-o' (`tex-latex-block'). A blank line is inserted between the two, and point is left there. You can use completion when you enter the block type; to specify additional block type names beyond the standard list, set the variable `latex-block-names'. For example, here's how to add `theorem', `corollary', and `proof': (setq latex-block-names '("theorem" "corollary" "proof")) In LaTeX input, `\begin' and `\end' commands must balance. You can use `C-c C-e' (`tex-close-latex-block') to insert automatically a matching `\end' to match the last unmatched `\begin'. It indents the `\end' to match the corresponding `\begin'. It inserts a newline after `\end' if point is at the beginning of a line.  File: emacs, Node: TeX Print, Next: TeX Distrib, Prev: LaTeX Editing, Up: TeX Mode TeX Printing Commands --------------------- You can invoke TeX as an inferior of Emacs on either the entire contents of the buffer or just a region at a time. Running TeX in this way on just one chapter is a good way to see what your changes look like without taking the time to format the entire file. `C-c C-r' Invoke TeX on the current region, together with the buffer's header (`tex-region'). `C-c C-b' Invoke TeX on the entire current buffer (`tex-buffer'). `C-c TAB' Invoke BibTeX on the current file (`tex-bibtex-file'). `C-c C-f' Invoke TeX on the current file (`tex-file'). `C-c C-l' Recenter the window showing output from the inferior TeX so that the last line can be seen (`tex-recenter-output-buffer'). `C-c C-k' Kill the TeX subprocess (`tex-kill-job'). `C-c C-p' Print the output from the last `C-c C-r', `C-c C-b', or `C-c C-f' command (`tex-print'). `C-c C-v' Preview the output from the last `C-c C-r', `C-c C-b', or `C-c C-f' command (`tex-view'). `C-c C-q' Show the printer queue (`tex-show-print-queue'). You can pass the current buffer through an inferior TeX by means of `C-c C-b' (`tex-buffer'). The formatted output appears in a temporary file; to print it, type `C-c C-p' (`tex-print'). Afterward, you can use `C-c C-q' (`tex-show-print-queue') to view the progress of your output towards being printed. If your terminal has the ability to display TeX output files, you can preview the output on the terminal with `C-c C-v' (`tex-view'). You can specify the directory to use for running TeX by setting the variable `tex-directory'. `"."' is the default value. If your environment variable `TEXINPUTS' contains relative directory names, or if your files contains `\input' commands with relative file names, then `tex-directory' *must* be `"."' or you will get the wrong results. Otherwise, it is safe to specify some other directory, such as `"/tmp"'. If you want to specify which shell commands are used in the inferior TeX, you can do so by setting the values of the variables `tex-run-command', `latex-run-command', `slitex-run-command', `tex-dvi-print-command', `tex-dvi-view-command', and `tex-show-queue-command'. You *must* set the value of `tex-dvi-view-command' for your particular terminal; this variable has no default value. The other variables have default values that may (or may not) be appropriate for your system. Normally, the file name given to these commands comes at the end of the command string; for example, `latex FILENAME'. In some cases, however, the file name needs to be embedded in the command; an example is when you need to provide the file name as an argument to one command whose output is piped to another. You can specify where to put the file name with `*' in the command string. For example, (setq tex-dvi-print-command "dvips -f * | lpr") The terminal output from TeX, including any error messages, appears in a buffer called `*tex-shell*'. If TeX gets an error, you can switch to this buffer and feed it input (this works as in Shell mode; *note Interactive Shell::.). Without switching to this buffer you can scroll it so that its last line is visible by typing `C-c C-l'. Type `C-c C-k' (`tex-kill-job') to kill the TeX process if you see that its output is no longer useful. Using `C-c C-b' or `C-c C-r' also kills any TeX process still running. You can also pass an arbitrary region through an inferior TeX by typing `C-c C-r' (`tex-region'). This is tricky, however, because most files of TeX input contain commands at the beginning to set parameters and define macros, without which no later part of the file will format correctly. To solve this problem, `C-c C-r' allows you to designate a part of the file as containing essential commands; it is included before the specified region as part of the input to TeX. The designated part of the file is called the "header". To indicate the bounds of the header in Plain TeX mode, you insert two special strings in the file. Insert `%**start of header' before the header, and `%**end of header' after it. Each string must appear entirely on one line, but there may be other text on the line before or after. The lines containing the two strings are included in the header. If `%**start of header' does not appear within the first 100 lines of the buffer, `C-c C-r' assumes that there is no header. In LaTeX mode, the header begins with `\documentstyle' and ends with `\begin{document}'. These are commands that LaTeX requires you to use in any case, so nothing special needs to be done to identify the header. The commands (`tex-buffer') and (`tex-region') do all of their work in a temporary directory, and do not have available any of the auxiliary files needed by TeX for cross-references; these commands are generally not suitable for running the final copy in which all of the cross-references need to be correct. When you want the auxiliary files, use `C-c C-f' (`tex-file') which runs TeX on the current buffer's file, in that file's directory. Before TeX runs, you will be asked about saving any modified buffers. Generally, you need to use (`tex-file') twice to get cross-references correct. For LaTeX files, you can use BibTeX to process the auxiliary file for the current buffer's file. BibTeX looks up bibliographic citations in a data base and prepares the cited references for the bibliography section. The command `C-c TAB' (`tex-bibtex-file') runs the shell command (`tex-bibtex-command') to produce a `.bbl' file for the current buffer's file. Generally, you need to do `C-c C-f' (`tex-file') once to generate the `.aux' file, then do `C-c TAB' (`tex-bibtex-file'), and then repeat `C-c C-f' (`tex-file') twice more to get the cross-references correct. Entering any kind of TeX mode runs the hooks `text-mode-hook' and `tex-mode-hook'. Then it runs either `plain-tex-mode-hook' or `latex-mode-hook', whichever is appropriate. For SliTeX files, it calls `slitex-mode-hook'. Starting the TeX shell runs the hook `tex-shell-hook'. *Note Hooks::.  File: emacs, Node: TeX Distrib, Prev: TeX Print, Up: TeX Mode Unix TeX Distribution --------------------- TeX for Unix systems can be obtained from the University of Washington for a distribution fee. To order a full distribution, specify whether you prefer 1/4 inch QIC-24 or 4mm DAT tape (9-track reel-to-reel is no longer available) and send $210.00 for a (tar or cpio) cartridge, payable to the University of Washington to: Pierre MacKay Department of Classics Denny Hall, Mail Stop DH-10 University of Washington Seattle, Washington 98195 Purchase orders are acceptable, but there is an extra charge of $10.00, to pay for processing charges. For overseas orders please add $20.00 to the base cost for shipment via air parcel post, or $30.00 for shipment via courier. The normal distribution is a tar tape, blocked 20, 1600 bpi, on an industry standard 2400 foot half-inch reel. The physical format for the 1/4 inch streamer cartridges is QIC-24. System V tapes can be written in cpio format, blocked 5120 bytes, with ASCII headers.  File: emacs, Node: Nroff Mode, Next: Formatted Text, Prev: TeX Mode, Up: Text Nroff Mode ========== Nroff mode is a mode like Text mode but modified to handle nroff commands present in the text. Invoke `M-x nroff-mode' to enter this mode. It differs from Text mode in only a few ways. All nroff command lines are considered paragraph separators, so that filling will never garble the nroff commands. Pages are separated by `.bp' commands. Comments start with backslash-doublequote. Also, three special commands are provided that are not in Text mode: `M-n' Move to the beginning of the next line that isn't an nroff command (`forward-text-line'). An argument is a repeat count. `M-p' Like `M-n' but move up (`backward-text-line'). `M-?' Prints in the echo area the number of text lines (lines that are not nroff commands) in the region (`count-text-lines'). The other feature of Nroff mode is that you can turn on Electric Nroff mode. This is a minor mode that you can turn on or off with `M-x electric-nroff-mode' (*note Minor Modes::.). When the mode is on, each time you use RET to end a line that contains an nroff command that opens a kind of grouping, the matching nroff command to close that grouping is automatically inserted on the following line. For example, if you are at the beginning of a line and type `. ( b RET', this inserts the matching command `.)b' on a new line following point. If you use Outline minor mode with Nroff mode (*note Outline Mode::.), heading lines are lines of the form `.H' followed by a number (the header level). Entering Nroff mode runs the hook `text-mode-hook', followed by the hook `nroff-mode-hook' (*note Hooks::.).  File: emacs, Node: Formatted Text, Prev: Nroff Mode, Up: Text Editing Formatted Text ====================== "Enriched mode" is a minor mode for editing files that contain formatted text in WYSIWYG fashion, as in a word processor. Currently, formatted text in Enriched mode can specify fonts, colors, underlining, margins, and types of filling and justification. In the future, we plan to implement other formatting features as well. Enriched mode is a minor mode (*note Minor Modes::.). Typically it is used in conjunction with Text mode (*note Text Mode::.). However, you can also use it with other major modes such as Outline mode and Indented Text mode. Potentially, Emacs can store formatted text files in various file formats. Currently, only one format is implemented: "text/enriched" format, which is defined by the MIME protocol. *Note Format Conversion: (elisp)Format Conversion, for details of how Emacs recognizes and converts file formats. The Emacs distribution contains a formatted text file that can serve as an example. Its name is `etc/enriched.doc'. It contains samples illustrating all the features described in this section. It also contains a list of ideas for future enhancements. * Menu: * Requesting Formatted Text:: Entering and exiting Enriched mode. * Hard and Soft Newlines:: There are two different kinds of newlines. * Editing Format Info:: How to edit text properties. * Faces: Format Faces. Bold, italic, underline, etc. * Color: Format Colors. Changing the color of text. * Indent: Format Indentation. Changing the left and right margins. * Justification: Format Justification. Centering, setting text flush with the left or right margin, etc. * Other: Format Properties. The "special" text properties submenu. * Forcing Enriched Mode:: How to force use of Enriched mode.  File: emacs, Node: Requesting Formatted Text, Next: Hard and Soft Newlines, Up: Formatted Text Requesting to Edit Formatted Text --------------------------------- Whenever you visit a file that Emacs saved in the text/enriched format, Emacs automatically converts the formatting information in the file into Emacs's own internal format (text properties), and turns on Enriched mode. To create a new file of formatted text, first visit the nonexistent file, then type `M-x enriched-mode' before you start inserting text. This command turns on Enriched mode. Do this before you begin inserting text, to ensure that the text you insert is handled properly. More generally, the command `enriched-mode' turns Enriched mode on if it was off, and off if it was on. With a prefix argument, this command turns Enriched mode on if the argument is positive, and turns the mode off otherwise. When you save a buffer while Enriched mode is enabled in it, Emacs automatically converts the text to text/enriched format while writing it into the file. When you visit the file again, Emacs will automatically recognize the format, reconvert the text, and turn on Enriched mode again. Normally, after reading a file in text/enriched format, Emacs refills each paragraph to fit the width of the window. You can turn off this refilling, to save time, by setting the variable `enriched-fill-after-visiting' to `nil' or to `ask'. In any case, if the window width is the same as the width with which the file was saved, Emacs trusts that the file is already properly filled. You can add annotations for saving additional text properties, which Emacs normally does not save, by adding to `enriched-translations'. Note that the text/enriched standard requires any non-standard annotations to have names starting with `x-', as in `x-read-only'. This ensures that they will not conflict with standard annotations that may be added later.  File: emacs, Node: Hard and Soft Newlines, Next: Editing Format Info, Prev: Requesting Formatted Text, Up: Formatted Text Hard and Soft Newlines ---------------------- In formatted text, Emacs distinguishes between two different kinds of newlines, "hard" newlines and "soft" newlines. Hard newlines are used to separate paragraphs, or items in a list, or anywhere that there should always be a line break regardless of the margins. The `RET' command (`newline') and `C-o' (`open-line') insert hard newlines. Soft newlines are used to make text fit between the margins. All the fill commands, including Auto Fill, insert soft newlines--and they delete only soft newlines. Although hard and soft newlines look the same, it is important to bear the difference in mind. Do not use RET to break lines in the middle of filled paragraphs, or else you will get hard newlines that are barriers to further filling. Instead, let Auto Fill mode break lines, so that if the text or the margins change, Emacs can refill the lines properly. *Note Auto Fill::. On the other hand, in tables and lists, where the lines should always remain as you type them, you can use RET to end lines. For these lines, you may also want to set the justification style to `unfilled'. *Note Format Justification::.  File: emacs, Node: Editing Format Info, Next: Format Faces, Prev: Hard and Soft Newlines, Up: Formatted Text Editing Format Information -------------------------- There are two ways to alter the formatting information for a formatted text file: with keyboard commands, and with the mouse. The easiest way to add properties to your document is by using the Text Properties menu. You can get to this menu in two ways: from the Edit menu in the menu bar, or with `C-mouse-2' (hold the CTRL key and press the middle mouse button). Most of the items in the Text Properties menu lead to other submenus. These are described in the sections that follow. Some items run commands directly: `Remove Properties' Delete from the region all the text properties that the Text Properties menu works with (`facemenu-remove-props'). `Remove All' Delete *all* text properties from the region (`facemenu-remove-all'). `List Properties' List all the text properties of the character following point (`list-text-properties-at'). `Display Faces' Display a list of all the defined faces. `Display Colors' Display a list of all the defined colors.  File: emacs, Node: Format Faces, Next: Format Colors, Prev: Editing Format Info, Up: Formatted Text Faces in Formatted Text ----------------------- The Faces submenu lists various Emacs faces including `bold', `italic', and `underline'. Selecting one of these adds the chosen face to the region. *Note Faces::. You can also specify a face with these keyboard commands: `M-g d' Set the region, or the next inserted character, to the `default' face (`facemenu-set-default'). `M-g b' Set the region, or the next inserted character, to the `bold' face (`facemenu-set-bold'). `M-g i' Set the region, or the next inserted character, to the `italic' face (`facemenu-set-italic'). `M-g l' Set the region, or the next inserted character, to the `bold-italic' face (`facemenu-set-bold-italic'). `M-g u' Set the region, or the next inserted character, to the `underline' face (`facemenu-set-underline'). `M-g o FACE RET' Set the region, or the next inserted character, to the face FACE (`facemenu-set-face'). If you use these commands with a prefix argument--or, in Transient Mark mode, if the region is not active--then these commands specify a face to use for your next self-inserting input. *Note Transient Mark::. This applies to both the keyboard commands and the menu commands. Enriched mode defines two additional faces: `excerpt' and `fixed'. These correspond to codes used in the text/enriched file format. The `excerpt' face is intended for quotations. This face is the same as `italic' unless you customize it (*note Modifying Faces::.). The `fixed' face is meant to say, "Use a fixed-width font for this part of the text." Emacs currently supports only fixed-width fonts; therefore, the `fixed' annotation is not necessary now. However, we plan to support variable width fonts in future Emacs versions, and other systems that display text/enriched format may not use a fixed-width font as the default. So if you specifically want a certain part of the text to use a fixed-width font, you should specify the `fixed' face for that part. The `fixed' face is normally defined to use a different font from the default. However, systems have different fonts installed, you may need to customize this. If your terminal cannot display different faces, you will not be able to see them, but you can still edit documents containing faces. You can even add faces and colors to documents. They will be visible when the file is viewed on a terminal that can display them.  File: emacs, Node: Format Colors, Next: Format Indentation, Prev: Format Faces, Up: Formatted Text Colors in Formatted Text ------------------------ You can specify foreground and background colors for portions of the text. There is a menu for specifying the foreground color and a menu for specifying the background color. Each color menu lists all the colors that you have used in Enriched mode in the current Emacs session. If you specify a color with a prefix argument--or, in Transient Mark mode, if the region is not active--then it applies to your next self-inserting input. *Note Transient Mark::. Otherwise, the command applies to the region. Each color menu contains one additional item: `Other'. You can use this item to specify a color that is not listed in the menu; it reads the color name with the minibuffer. To display list of available colors and their names, use the `Display Colors' menu item in the Text Properties menu (*note Editing Format Info::.). Any color that you specify in this way, or that is mentioned in a formatted text file that you read in, is added to both color menus for the duration of the Emacs session. There are no key bindings for specifying colors, but you can do so with the extended commands `M-x facemenu-set-foreground' and `M-x facemenu-set-background'. Both of these commands read the name of the color with the minibuffer.  File: emacs, Node: Format Indentation, Next: Format Justification, Prev: Format Colors, Up: Formatted Text Indentation in Formatted Text ----------------------------- When editing formatted text, you can specify different amounts of indentation for the right or left margin of an entire paragraph or a part of a paragraph. The margins you specify automatically affect the Emacs fill commands (*note Filling::.) and line-breaking commands. The Indentation submenu provides a convenient interface for specifying these properties. The submenu contains four items: `Indent More' Indent the region by 4 columns (`increase-left-margin'). In Enriched mode, this command is also available on `C-x TAB'; if you supply a numeric argument, that says how many columns to add to the margin (a negative argument reduces the number of columns). `Indent Less' Remove 4 columns of indentation from the region. `Indent Right More' Make the text narrower by indenting 4 columns at the right margin. `Indent Right Less' Remove 4 columns of indentation from the right margin. You can use these commands repeatedly to increase or decrease the indentation. The most common way to use these commands is to change the indentation of an entire paragraph. However, that is not the only use. You can change the margins at any point; the new values take effect at the end of the line (for right margins) or the beginning of the next line (for left margins). This makes it possible to format paragraphs with "hanging indents", which means that the first line is indented less than subsequent lines. To set up a hanging indent, increase the indentation of the region starting after the first word of the paragraph and running until the end of the paragraph. Indenting the first line of a paragraph is easier. Set the margin for the whole paragraph where you want it to be for the body of the paragraph, then indent the first line by inserting extra spaces or tabs. Sometimes, as a result of editing, the filling of a paragraph becomes messed up--parts of the paragraph may extend past the left or right margins. When this happens, use `M-q' (`fill-paragraph') to refill the paragraph. The variable `standard-indent' specifies how many columns these commands should add to or subtract from the indentation. The default value is 4. Enriched mode automatically sets the variable `fill-column' based on the window width: it leaves a certain number of columns for the right margin. The variable `enriched-default-right-margin' says how many columns. The default value is 10.  File: emacs, Node: Format Justification, Next: Format Properties, Prev: Format Indentation, Up: Formatted Text Justification in Formatted Text ------------------------------- When editing formatted text, you can specify various styles of justification for a paragraph. The style you specify automatically affects the Emacs fill commands. The Justification submenu provides a convenient interface for specifying the style. The submenu contains five items: `Flush Left' This is the most common style of justification (at least for English). Lines are aligned at the left margin but left uneven at the right. `Flush Right' This aligns each line with the right margin. Spaces and tabs are added on the left, if necessary, to make lines line up on the right. `Full' This justifies the text, aligning both edges of each line. Justified text looks very nice in a printed book, where the spaces can all be adjusted equally, but it does not look as nice with a fixed-width font on the screen. Perhaps a future version of Emacs will be able to adjust the width of spaces in a line to achieve elegant justification. `Center' This centers every line between the current margins. `None' This turns off filling entirely. Each line will remain as you wrote it; the fill and auto-fill functions will have no effect on text which has this setting. You can, however, still indent the left margin. In unfilled regions, all newlines are treated as hard newlines (*note Hard and Soft Newlines::.) . In Enriched mode, you can also specify justification from the keyboard using the `M-j' prefix character: `M-j l' Make the region left-filled (`set-justification-left'). `M-j r' Make the region right-filled (`set-justification-right'). `M-j f' Make the region fully-justified (`set-justification-full'). `M-j c' `M-S' Make the region centered (`set-justification-center'). `M-j u' Make the region unfilled (`set-justification-none'). Justification styles apply to entire paragraphs. All the justification-changing commands operate on the paragraph containing point, or, if the region is active, on all paragraphs which overlap the region. The default justification style is specified by the variable `default-justification'. Its value should be one of the symbols `left', `right', `full', `center', or `none'.  File: emacs, Node: Format Properties, Next: Forcing Enriched Mode, Prev: Format Justification, Up: Formatted Text Setting Other Text Properties ----------------------------- The Other Properties menu lets you add or remove three other useful text properties: `read-only', `invisible' and `intangible'. The `intangible' property disallows moving point within the text, the `invisible' text property hides text from display, and the `read-only' property disallows alteration of the text. Each of these special properties has a menu item to add it to the region. The last menu item, `Remove Special', removes all of these special properties from the text in the region. Currently, the `invisible' and `intangible' properties are *not* saved in the text/enriched format. The `read-only' property is saved, but it is not a standard part of the text/enriched format, so other editors may not respect it.  File: emacs, Node: Forcing Enriched Mode, Prev: Format Properties, Up: Formatted Text Forcing Enriched Mode --------------------- Normally, Emacs knows when you are editing formatted text because it recognizes the special annotations used in the file that you visited. However, there are situations in which you must take special actions to convert file contents or turn on Enriched mode: * When you visit a file that was created with some other editor, Emacs may not recognize the file as being in the text/enriched format. In this case, when you visit the file you will see the formatting commands rather than the formatted text. Type `M-x format-decode-buffer' to translate it. * When you *insert* a file into a buffer, rather than visiting it. Emacs does the necessary conversions on the text which you insert, but it does not enable Enriched mode. If you wish to do that, type `M-x enriched-mode'. The command `format-decode-buffer' translates text in various formats into Emacs's internal format. It asks you to specify the format to translate from; however, normally you can type just RET, which tells Emacs to guess the format. If you wish to look at a file in text/enriched format in its raw form, as a sequence of characters with no formatting, use `M-x format-find-file RET FILENAME RET RET'. The empty second argument means, "read without format conversion."