Emacs Org-Mode is the preferred text editor for Cyborganize, due to its speed, flexibility and reliability. This page offers you a complete introduction to the program. No prior knowledge of Emacs is required.

Intro to Emacs

I’m sure 99% of you don’t use Emacs. Relax, I won’t send you off to read the manual. Instead, you should start by reading “Emacs for Writers” by Randall Wood. It’s a free pdf that explains why Emacs is the best environment for writers, and also teaches you how to use the program.

A writer’s needs are much simpler than a programmer’s. “Emacs for Writers” lets you skip the programming stuff. It’s 22 pages long, which covers EVERYTHING you need to write full length books in foreign languages with LaTex and macros, etc. You needn’t read the entire book. The important bits are covered in just 8 pages. These explain why you should use a text editor, the basic Emacs concepts and function, and how to control windows.

Here’s a list of the table of contents, with each section marked by importance:

• 1 Introduction
  • 1.1 License and Version History – SKIP
  • 1.2 Introduction: Why a Text Editor instead of a Word Processor? –IMPORTANT
• 2 Setting Up
  • 2.1 Emacs on Linux/Unix, Mac OSX, and Windows – SKIP
  • 2.2 X or Console? – SKIP
• 3 The Basics – READ ALL
  • 3.1 Some Vocabulary
  • 3.2 Emacs Commands
  • 3.3 Files (Opening, Saving, Printing, etc.)
  • 3.4 Navigating
  • 3.5 Scrolling
  • 3.6 Bookmarks
  • 3.7 Selecting Text (“Regions”)
  • 3.8 Cutting and Pasting (Killing and Yanking)
  • 3.9 Searching and Replacing
• 4 Foreign Languages and Foreign Characters – SKIP ALL
  • 4.1 Occasional Diacriticals
  • 4.2 Writing in a Foreign Alphabet
  • 4.3 Inserting Special Characters
• 5 Formatting Your Text – ALL OPTIONAL
  • 5.1 Word wrap
  • 5.2 Reformatting Hard Wrapped Documents
  • 5.3 Transposing Letters/Words/Lines
  • 5.4 Cleaning Up Spacing
  • 5.5 Changing Case
  • 5.6 End of Line Characters
• 6 Multiple Windows, Buffers, and Frames – IMPORTANT
• 7 Spell Checking – OPTIONAL
• 8 Customizing your Environment – ALL OPTIONAL
  • 8.1 Macros
  • 8.2 Keyboard Shortcuts
  • 8.3 Fonts and Colors
  • 8.4 Default Window Parameters
  • 8.5 Menus and Toolbars
  • 8.6 Other Environment Settings
• 9 Next Steps – ALL OPTIONAL
  • 9.1 Learning more about emacs
  • 9.2 Emacs and LTEX
• 10 Acknowledgments – SKIP

Intro to Org-Mode

Now that we’ve introduced Emacs, what is Org-Mode?

Org-Mode modifies Emacs, giving it a better outliner, better text editing capabilities, tables, and a whole lot more. We will use it just for the outlining and text editing improvements.

This blog post titled “emacs for writers: org mode” explains some of Org-Mode’s useful features. If you’re curious, you can learn more about Org-Mode’s GTD capabilities by watching Org-Mode creator Carsten Dominic’s Google Tech Talks presentation on YouTube. Carsten has a funny accent but he’s a very engaging and intelligent guy. You can also watch a full screencast demo of Org-Mode’s capabilities here. The first two minutes are pretty slow and boring, but after that it gets fast and interesting. Finally, you can find lots more info at Org-Mode’s home page and in the Org-Mode tutorials section.

Installing And Configuring Emacs Org-Mode on Windows

Video 1 – Installing and Configuring Emacs W32

Video 2 – Creating Cyborganize Execution Loop Files

Video 3 – Using Org-Mode, Configuring Emacs, and Creating Rest of Files

Congrats, you’re done

That’s it! Got questions or comments? Leave them below.