comparison etc/FAQ @ 24073:633699bb2aae

Currently-posted version.

24072:749d25833f30

                       GNU Emacs FAQ: Introduction

This is the introduction to a list of frequently asked questions (FAQ)
about GNU Emacs 20 with answers.  Some of the answers are not valid for GNU
Emacs 18 or 19.

[This version has been somewhat edited from the last-posted version
(as of early December 1998) for inclusion in the Emacs distribution.]

The FAQ is posted (in five parts) to reduce the noise level in the
gnu.emacs.help newsgroup (which is also the help-gnu-emacs mailing list)
which results from the repetition of frequently asked questions, wrong
answers to these questions, corrections to the wrong answers, corrections

65:  How do I delete menus and menu options?
66:  How do I turn on syntax highlighting?
67:  How can I force Emacs to scroll only one line when I move past the
     bottom of the screen?
68:  How can I replace highlighted text with what I type?
69:  How can I edit MS-DOS-style text files using Emacs?
70:  How can I tell Emacs to fill paragraphs with a single space after
     each period?

Bugs/Problems

91:  How do I submit code to the Emacs Lisp Archive?
92:  Where can I get other up-to-date GNU stuff?
93:  What is the difference between Emacs and XEmacs (formerly "Lucid
     Emacs")?
94:  Where can I get Emacs for my PC running MS-DOS?
95:  Where can I get Emacs for Microsoft Windows, Windows 9x, or Windows
     NT?
96:  Where can I get Emacs for my PC running OS/2?
97:  Where can I get Emacs for my Atari ST?
98:  Where can I get Emacs for my Amiga?
99:  Where can I get Emacs for NeXTSTEP?

103: What is the IP address of XXX.YYY.ZZZ?

Major Emacs Lisp Packages, Emacs Extensions, and Related Programs

104: VM (View Mail) -- another mail reader within Emacs, with MIME support
105: SuperCite -- mail and news citation package within Emacs
106: Calc -- poor man's Mathematica within Emacs
107: VIPER -- vi emulation for Emacs
108: AUC TeX -- enhanced LaTeX mode with debugging facilities
109: BBDB -- personal Info Rolodex integrated with mail/news readers
110: Ispell -- spell checker in C with interface for Emacs
111: W3-mode -- A World Wide Web browser inside of Emacs
112: EDB -- Database program for Emacs; replaces forms editing modes
113: Mailcrypt -- PGP interface within Emacs mail and news
114: Patch -- program to apply "diffs" for updating files

Changing Key Bindings and Handling Key Binding Problems

115: How do I bind keys (including function keys) to commands?
116: Why does Emacs say "Key sequence XXX uses invalid prefix characters"?
117: Why doesn't this [terminal or window-system setup] code work in my
     .emacs file, but it works just fine after Emacs starts up?
118: How do I use function keys under X Windows?
119: How do I tell what characters or symbols my function or arrow keys
     emit?
120: How do I set the X key "translations" for Emacs?
121: How do I handle C-s and C-q being used for flow control?
122: How do I bind `C-s' and `C-q' (or any key) if these keys are filtered
     out?
123: Why does the "Backspace" key invoke help?
124: Why doesn't Emacs look at the stty settings for Backspace vs. Delete?
125: How do I "swap" two keys?
126: How do I produce C-XXX with my keyboard?
127: What if I don't have a Meta key?
128: What if I don't have an Escape key?
129: Can I make my "Compose Character" key behave like a Meta key?
130: How do I bind a combination of modifier key and function key?
131: Why doesn't my Meta key work in an xterm window?
132: Why doesn't my ExtendChar key work as a Meta key under HP-UX 8.0
     and 9.x?

Using Emacs with Alternate Character Sets

133: How do I make Emacs display 8-bit characters?
134: How do I input 8-bit characters?
135: Where can I get an Emacs that handles kanji, Chinese, or other
     character sets?
136: Where is an Emacs that can handle Semitic (right-to-left) alphabets?

Mail and News

137: How do I change the included text prefix in mail/news followups?
138: How do I save a copy of outgoing mail?
139: Why doesn't Emacs expand my aliases when sending mail?
140: Why does Rmail think all my saved messages are one big message?
141: How can I sort the messages in my Rmail folder?
142: Why does Rmail need to write to /usr/spool/mail?
143: How do I recover my mail files after Rmail munges their format?
144: How can I force Rmail to reply to the sender of a message, but not the
  other recipients?
145: How can I get my favorite Emacs mail package to support MIME?  
146: How do I make Emacs automatically start my mail/news reader?
147: How do I read news under Emacs?
148: Why doesn't Gnus work via NNTP?
149: How do I view news articles with embedded underlining (e.g.,
     ClariNews)?
150: How do I save all the items of a multi-part posting in Gnus?
151: How do I make Gnus start up faster?
152: How do I catch up all newsgroups in Gnus?
153: Why can't I kill in Gnus based on the Newsgroups/Keywords/Control
     headers?
154: How do I get rid of flashing messages in Gnus for slow connections?
155: Why is catch up slow in Gnus?
156: Why does Gnus hang for a long time when posting?
157: Where can I find out more about Gnus?

------------------------------------------------------------

If you are viewing this text in a GNU Emacs Buffer, you can type "M-2 C-x
$" to get an overview of just the questions.  Then, when you want to look
at the text of the answers, just type "C-x $".

To search for a question numbered XXX, type "M-C-s ^XXX:", followed by a
C-r if that doesn't work.  Type RET to end the search.

If you have a web browser and the browse-url package configured for
it, you can visit ftp and HTTP uniform resource locators (URLs) by
placing the cursor on the URL and typing M-x browse-url-at-point.

The FAQ is posted in five parts; if you are missing a section or would
prefer to read the FAQ in a single file, see question 22.

------------------------------------------------------------
  Time-stamp: <1998-09-18 14:41:10 reuven>


Notation Used in FAQ

  Skip this section and then come back if you don't understand some of the

1:   What do these mean: C-h, M-C-a, RET, "ESC a", etc.?

  C-x: press the `x' key while holding down the Control key

  M-x: press the `x' key while holding down the Meta key (if your computer
       doesn't have a Meta key, see question 127)

  M-C-x: press the `x' key while holding down both Control and Meta
  C-M-x: a synonym for the above

  LFD: Linefeed or Newline; same as C-j
  RET: Return, sometimes marked Enter; same as C-m
  DEL: Delete,  usually not the same as Backspace; same as C-? (See
       question 123 if deleting invokes Emacs help)
  ESC: Escape; same as C-[
  TAB: Tab; same as C-i
  SPC: Space bar

  Key sequences longer than one key (and some single-key sequences) are

  years, although there may be some unintentional gaps in coverage.  The
  archive is not particularly well organized or easy to retrieve individual
  postings from, but pretty much everything is there.  The latest archives
  are available at
 
    ftp://gnudist.gnu.org/pub/gnu/MailingListArchives/current

  Web-based Usenet search services, such as DejaNews, also archive the
  gnu.* groups.  You can reach DejaNews at

    http://www.dejanews.com

  The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual is also available on-line, in Info
  format.  Texinfo source for the manual (along with pregenerated Info
  files) is available at

    ftp://gnudist.gnu.org/pub/gnu/elisp-manual-20-2.5.tar.gz

  and all mirrors of gnudist.gnu.org (See question 92 for a list).  See
  question 17 if you want to install the Info files, or question 18 if you
  want to use the Texinfo source to print the manual yourself.

  WWW versions of the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual are available at

  First, you must turn the Texinfo files into Info files.  You may do this
  using the stand-alone "makeinfo" program, available as part of the latest
  Texinfo package at

    ftp://gnudist.gnu.org/pub/gnu/texinfo-3.12.tar.gz

  and all mirrors of gnudist.gnu.org (see question 92 for a list).

  For information about the Texinfo format, read the Texinfo manual which
  comes with Emacs.  This manual also comes installed in Info format, so
  you can read it on-line.

  2. Edit the file info/dir in the installed Emacs distribution, and add a
     line for the top level node in the Info package that you are
     installing.  Follow the examples already in this file.  The format is:

       * Topic: (relative-pathname).  Short description of topic.

     If (as it should have done) the Texinfo file used the @direntry
     command, you can run the "install-info" command from the current
     Texinfo distribution to do this automatically -- see the example in
     the top-level Makefile in the Emacs source.

  If you want to install Info files and you don't have the necessary
  privileges, you have several options:

  * Info files don't actually need to be installed before being used.  You

  5. Print the DVI file XXX.dvi in the normal way for printing DVI files at
     your site.

  To get more general instructions, retrieve the latest Texinfo package
  mentioned in question 17.  The "texi2dvi" command from it will perform
  the above steps 1 to 4 for you.

19:  Can I view Info files without using Emacs?

  Yes.  Here are some alternative programs:

    Texinfo package.  See question 17 for details.

  * Xinfo, a stand-alone version of the Info program that runs under X
    Windows.  You can get it at

      ftp://gnudist.gnu.org/pub/gnu/xinfo-1.01.01.tar.gz

    and all mirrors of gnudist.gnu.org (See question 92 for a list).

  * Tkinfo, an Info viewer that runs under X Windows and uses Tcl/Tk.  You
    can get Tkinfo at

      http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/tkinfo/

                 UNIX-compatible software system with BYTE editors
    LPF -- Why you should join the League for Programming Freedom
    MACHINES -- Status of Emacs on Various Machines and Systems
    MAILINGLISTS -- GNU Project Electronic Mailing Lists
    NEWS -- Emacs news, a history of user-visible changes
    PROBLEMS -- Known problems with building and running Emacs in various
                situations, often with workarounds.
    SERVICE -- GNU Service Directory
    SUN-SUPPORT -- including "Using Emacstool with GNU Emacs"

  Latest versions of some of the above files are also available at

    ftp://gnudist.gnu.org/pub/gnu/GNUinfo/

  More GNU information, including back issues of the "GNU's Bulletin", are at

    http://www.gnu.org/bulletins/bulletins.html
    http://www.cs.pdx.edu/~trent/gnu/gnu.html

  See question 84 for some basic installation hints, and question 83 if you
  have problems with the installation.

  The file etc/SERVICE (see question 4 if you're not sure where that is)
  lists companies and individuals willing to sell you help in installing or
  using Emacs.  An up-to-date version this file is available on gnudist.gnu.org
  (see question 20).

22:  Where can I get the latest version of this document (the FAQ list)?

  The Emacs FAQ is available in several ways:

    If the FAQ articles have expired and been deleted from your news spool,
    it might (or might not) do some good to complain to your news
    administrator, because the most recent FAQ should not expire for a
    while.

  * Via anonymous FTP.  You can always fetch the latest FAQ at

      ftp://ftp.lerner.co.il/pub/emacs/faq.txt
      ftp://ftp.lerner.co.il/pub/emacs/faq.gz

      http://ftp.lerner.co.il/emacs/faq.txt
      http://ftp.lerner.co.il/emacs/faq.gz

  * In the Emacs distribution.  Since Emacs 18.56, the FAQ at the time of
    release has been part of the Emacs distribution as etc/FAQ (see
    question 4).

  For some not-so-serious alternative reasons for Emacs to have that name,
  check out etc/JOKES (see question 4).

24:  What is the latest version of Emacs?

  Emacs 20.4 is the current version as of this writing.

25:  What is different about Emacs 20?

  To find out what has changed in recent versions, type C-h n (M-x
  view-emacs-news).  The oldest changes are at the bottom of the file, so

  of MULE code for languages that use non-Latin characters, the "customize"
  facility for modifying variables without having to use Lisp, and
  automatic conversion of files from Macintosh, Microsoft, and Unix
  platforms.

  Many Lisp packages have been updated and enhanced for Emacs 20.


Common Things People Want To Do

26:  How do I set up a .emacs file properly?

  because it causes confusing non-standard behavior.  Then they send
  questions to help-gnu-emacs asking why Emacs isn't behaving as
  documented.  :-)

  Emacs 20 includes the new "customize" facility, which can be invoked
  using M-x customize RET or via the Help menu.  This allows users who are
  unfamiliar with Emacs Lisp to modify their .emacs files in a relatively
  straightforward way, using menus rather than Lisp code.  While all the
  packages included with Emacs (are meant to) support Customize now,
  packages from other sources may not.

  While Customize might indeed make it easier to configure Emacs, consider
  taking a bit of time to learn Emacs Lisp and modifying your .emacs
  directly. Simple configuration options are described rather completely in
  the "Init File" section of the on-line manual, for users interested in

  buffer will display the Lisp code from your .emacs file that caused the
  problem.

  You can also evaluate an individual function or argument to a function in
  your .emacs file by moving the cursor to the end of the function or
  argument and typing "C-x C-e" (M-x eval-last-sexp). "C-M-x" (M-x
  eval-defun) is particularly useful for re-evaluating "defvar" and
  "customize" forms.

  Use "C-h v" (M-x describe-variable) to check the value of variables which
  you are trying to set or use.

28:  How do I make Emacs display the current line (or column) number?

  To toggle having Emacs automatically display the current line number of the
  point in the mode line, do "M-x line-number-mode".  (This option is on by
  default.)  Note that Emacs will not display the line number if the buffer is
  larger than the value of the variable line-number-display-limit.
 
  As of Emacs 20, you can similarly display the current column with "M-x
  column-number-mode", by putting the form

    (setq column-number-mode t) 

  in your .emacs file or by using Customize.

  The "%c" format specifier in the variable mode-line-format will insert
  the current column's value into the mode line.  See the documentation for
  mode-line-format (using "C-h v mode-line-format RET") for more
  information on how to set and use this variable.

  Users of all Emacs versions can display the current column using Per
  Abrahamsen's <[e-mail]> "column" package.  See question 90 for
  instructions on how to get it.

  None of the vi emulation modes provide the "set number" capability of vi
  (as far as we know) but Kyle Jones's setnu.el package implements such a
  feature.

29:  How can I modify the titlebar to contain the current filename?

  The contains of an Emacs frame's titlebar is controlled by the variable
  frame-title-format, which has the same structure as the variable

    (condition-case ()
       (quietly-read-abbrev-file)
      (file-error nil))

    (add-hook 'XXX-mode-hook
              (lambda ()
                (setq abbrev-mode t)))

31:  How do I turn on auto-fill mode by default?

  To turn on auto-fill mode just once for one buffer, use "M-x
  auto-fill-mode".

  for that mode.  For example, to turn on auto-fill mode for all text
  buffers, including the following in your .emacs file:

    (add-hook 'text-mode-hook 'turn-on-auto-fill)

  You can also do this via the Help -> Options menu, which runs the command
  toggle-text-mode-auto-fill.

  If you want auto-fill mode on in all major modes, do this:

    (setq-default auto-fill-function 'do-auto-fill)

32:  How do I make Emacs use a certain major mode for certain files?

  If you want to use XXX mode for all files which end with the extension
  ".YYY", this will do it for you:

    (add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.YYY\\'" . XXX-mode))

  Otherwise put this somewhere in the first line of any file you want to
  edit in XXX mode (in the second line, if the first line begins with
  "#!"):

  If you are using a windowing system such as X, you can cause the region
  to be highlighted when the mark is active by including

        (transient-mark-mode t)

  in your .emacs file, using Customize or via the Help->Options menu.
  (Also see question 66.)

35:  How do I control Emacs's case-sensitivity when searching/replacing?

  For searching, the value of the variable case-fold-search determines
  whether they are case sensitive:

    (setq case-fold-search nil) ; make searches case sensitive
    (setq case-fold-search t)   ; make searches case insensitive

  To change this or similar variables during an Emacs session, use
  M-x set-variable.

  Similarly, for replacing, the variable case-replace determines whether
  replacements preserve case.

  To change the case sensitivity just for one major mode, use the major
  mode's hook.  For example:

    (add-hook 'XXX-mode-hook
              (lambda ()
                (setq case-fold-search nil)))

36:  How do I make Emacs wrap words for me?

  Use auto-fill mode, activated by typing "M-x auto-fill-mode".  The
  default maximum line width is 70, determined by the variable fill-column.

    execution of arbitrary Emacs Lisp forms and does not require the client
    program to wait for completion.

    The alpha version of an enhanced version of gnuserv is available at

        ftp://ftp.splode.com/pub/users/friedman/packages/fgnuserv-1.0.tar.gz

41:  How do I make Emacs recognize my compiler's funny error messages?

  The variable compilation-error-regexp-alist helps control how Emacs
  parses your compiler output.  It is a list of triples of the form:

  the comments included for this variable are quite useful -- the regular
  expressions required for your compiler's output may be very close to one
  already provided.  Once you have determined the proper regexps, use the
  following to inform Emacs of your changes:

        (add-to-list 'compilation-error-regexp-alist
                     '(REGEXP FILE-IDX LINE-IDX))

42:  How do I indent C switch statements like this?

  Many people want to indent their switch statements like this:

    f()
    {

  M-x overwrite-mode (a minor mode).  This toggles overwrite-mode on and
  off, so exiting from overwrite-mode is as easy as another M-x
  overwrite-mode.

  On some systems the "Insert" key toggles overwrite-mode on and off.

45:  How do I stop Emacs from beeping on a terminal?

  Martin R. Frank <[e-mail]> writes:

      ... :vb=: ...                    

    And evaluate the following Lisp form:

      (setq visible-bell t)

  There is also a way to turn off _all_ effects of a bell, by defining
  a custom `ring-bell-function' that does nothing.

46:  How do I turn down the bell volume in Emacs running under X Windows?

  You can adjust the bell volume and duration for all programs with the
  shell command xset.

           b [vol [pitch [dur]]]          b on

47:  How do I tell Emacs to automatically indent a new line to the
     indentation of the previous line?

  Such behavior is automatic in text mode in Emacs 20.  From the NEWS file
  for Emacs 20.2:

    ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.  This makes
    it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode in Text mode,
    and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).  TAB in Text mode
    now runs the command indent-relative; this makes a practical difference

  cursor) is located over one.  To load paren automatically, include the
  line

    (require 'paren)

  in your .emacs file.  As of version 20.1, you must instead call
  show-paren-mode in your .emacs file:

    (show-paren-mode 1)

  and the "require" is redundant.

  The "customize" facility will let you turn on show-paren-mode.  Use M-x
  customize-group RET paren-showing RET.  From within customize, you can
  also go directly to the "paren-showing" group.

    can train it to skip over balanced brackets and braces at the same time
    by modifying the syntax table.)

  * Here is some Emacs Lisp that will make the % key show the matching
    parenthesis, like in vi.  In addition, if the cursor isn't over a
    parenthesis, it simply inserts a % like normal.  (`Parenthesis' actually
    includes and character with `open' or `close' syntax, which usually means
    "()[]{}".)

      ;; By an unknown contributor

      (global-set-key "%" 'match-paren)

50:  Is there an equivalent to the `.' (dot) command of vi?

  (`.' is the redo command in vi.  It redoes the last insertion/deletion.)

  In Emacs 20.3 and later, use the C-x z ("repeat") command to repeat `simple
  commands'.

  Otherwise you can type "C-x ESC ESC" (repeat-complex-command) to reinvoke
  commands that used the minibuffer to get arguments.  In
  repeat-complex-command you can type M-p and M-n to scan through all the
  different complex commands you've typed.

  To repeat a set of commands, use keyboard macros.  (See "Keyboard Macros"
  in the on-line manual.)

  VIPER, which comes with Emacs, emulates vi, including `.'.  (See question
  107.)

51:  What are the valid X resource settings (i.e., stuff in .Xdefaults)?

  See Emacs man page, or "Resources X" in the on-line manual.

  RET".

  To do this to a region, use "string-rectangle" ("C-x r t").  Set the mark
  (`C-SPC') at the beginning of the first line you want to prefix, move the
  cursor to last line to be prefixed, and type "C-x r t > RET".  To do this
  for the whole buffer, type "C-x h C-x r t > RET".  In Emacs 20.3 and
  later, this will affect only the current region if Transient Mark mode is
  on (see NEWS via C-h N).

  If you are trying to prefix a yanked mail message with '>', you might
  want to set the variable mail-yank-prefix.  Better yet, get the SuperCite
  package (see question 105), which provides flexible citation for yanked
  mail and news messages.

55:  How do I insert "_^H" before each character in a region to get an
     underlined paragraph?

  command dired-do-query-replace, which allows users to replace regular
  expressions in multiple files.

61:  Where is the documentation for "etags"?

  "etags" is documented in the Tags node of the Emacs manual.  The "etags"
  man page should be in the same place as the "emacs" man page.

  Quick command-line switch descriptions are also available.  For example,
  "etags -H".

62:  How do I disable backup files?

    (setq initial-dired-omit-files-p t)

  If you're tired of seeing backup files whenever you do an "ls" at the
  Unix shell, try GNU ls with the "-B" option.  GNU ls is part of the GNU
  fileutils package, available at mirrors of gnudist.gnu.org (see question 92).

  To disable or change how backups are made, see "Backup Names" in the
  on-line manual.

63:  How do I disable auto-save-mode?

  To move a menu option from one position to another, simply evaluate
  define-key-after with the appropriate final argument.

  More detailed information -- and more examples of how to create and
  modify menu options -- are in the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual, under
  "Menu Keymaps."  (See question 16 for information on this manual.)

  Note that Emacs 20.3 introduced a better (`extended') format for menu
  items, described in the NEWS file and the Lisp Manual.  The "easymenu"
  package provides support for defining menus conveniently with some
  portability amongst Emacs versions.

65:  How do I delete menus and menu options?

  The simplest way to remove a menu is to set its keymap to nil.  For
  example, to delete the "Words" menu (from question 64), use:

  To turn font-lock mode on within an existing buffer, use "M-x
  font-lock-mode RET".

  To automatically invoke font-lock mode when a particular major mode is
  invoked, set the major mode's hook or define font-lock-global-modes as a
  list with the mode name as an element.  For example, to fontify all
  c-mode buffers, add the following to your .emacs file:

    (add-hook 'c-mode-hook 'turn-on-font-lock)

  To automatically invoke font-lock mode for all major modes, you can turn
  on global-font-lock mode by including the following line in your .emacs
  file (or use Custom):

    (global-font-lock-mode 1)

  This instructs Emacs to turn on font-lock mode in those buffers for which
  a font-lock mode definition has been provided (in the variable
  font-lock-global-modes or via the variable font-lock-defaults-alist).  If
  you edit a file in pie-ala-mode, and no font-lock definitions have been
  provided for pie-ala files, then the above setting will have no effect on
  that particular buffer.

  Highlighting with font-lock mode can take quite a while, and thus
  different levels of decoration are available, from slight to gaudy.  To
  control how decorated your buffers should become, set the value of
  font-lock-maximum-decoration in your .emacs file, with a nil value

  Also see the documentation for the function font-lock-mode, available by
  typing C-h f font-lock-mode ("M-x describe-function RET font-lock-mode
  RET").

  For more information on font-lock mode, particularly adding new patterns,
  see the Lisp Reference Manual and the commentary in the source
  font-lock.el, which you can find in Emacs 20 (if it is installed) using,
  say, M-x find-function font-lock-mode.

  To print buffers with the faces (i.e., colors and fonts) intact, use
  "M-x ps-print-buffer-with-faces" or "M-x ps-print-region-with-faces".

67:  How can I force Emacs to scroll only one line when I move past the

    When OFF, typed text is just inserted at point.

  This mode also allows you to delete (not kill) the highlighted region by
  pressing DEL.

69:  How can I edit MS-DOS-style text files using Emacs?

  As of Emacs 20, detection and handling of MS-DOS (and Windows) files is
  performed transparently.  You can open an MS-DOS file on a Unix system
  (and vice versa), edit it, and save it without having to worry about the
  file format.  To save it with a different end-of-line convention use
  C-x RET c to specify a new coding system such as undecided-unix.

  When editing an MS-DOS style file, a backslash (\) will appear in the
  mode line.

  You can avoid translation of the end-of-line conventions either by
  visiting a file using M-x find-file-literally or by setting the variable
  inhibit-eol-conversion to t.

  If you are running an earlier version of Emacs, get crypt++ from
  ftp://ftp.cs.umb.edu/pub/misc/crypt++.el.  Among other things, crypt++
  transparently modifies MS-DOS files as they are loaded and saved,
  allowing you to ignore the different conventions that Unix and MS-DOS
  have for delineating the end of a line.

70:  How can I tell Emacs to fill paragraphs with a single space after

  Ulrich Mueller <[e-mail]> suggests adding the following two
  lines to your .emacs file:

    (setq sentence-end "[.?!][]\"')}]*\\($\\|[ \t]\\)[ \t\n]*")
    (setq sentence-end-double-space nil)

  See "Sentences" in the online manual.


Bugs/Problems

71:  Does Emacs have problems with files larger than 8 megabytes?

    pointers.

72:  How do I get rid of ^M or echoed commands in my shell buffer?

  Try typing "M-x shell-strip-ctrl-m RET" while in shell-mode to make them
  go away.  You might add this function to comint-output-filter-functions:

  (add-hook 'comint-output-filter-functions 'shell-strip-ctrl-m)

  If that doesn't work, you have several options:

  For tcsh, put this in your .cshrc (or .tcshrc) file:

    if ($?EMACS) then
        if ("$EMACS" == t) then

  You should also check for other programs named "env" in your path (e.g.,
  SunOS has a program named /usr/bin/env).  We don't understand why this
  can cause a failure and don't know a general solution for working around
  the problem in this case.

  It has been reported that this sometimes happened when Emacs was started
  as an X client from an xterm window (i.e., had a controlling tty) but the
  xterm was later terminated.

  See also etc/PROBLEMS for other possible causes of this message.

74:  Where is the termcap/terminfo entry for terminal type "emacs"?

  The termcap entry for terminal type "emacs" is ordinarily put in the
  TERMCAP environment variable of subshells.  It may help in certain

  Your terminal (or something between your terminal and the computer) is
  sending C-s and C-q for flow control, and Emacs is receiving these
  characters and interpreting them as commands.  (The C-s character
  normally invokes the isearch-forward command.)  For possible solutions,
  see question 121.

76:  Why can't Emacs talk to certain hosts (or certain hostnames)?

  The problem may be that Emacs is linked with a wimpier version of
  gethostbyname than the rest of the programs on the machine.  This is

  system-wide lisp/default.el file.  For information on how to debug your
  .emacs file, see question 27.

  It may be the case that you need to load some package first, or use a
  hook that will be evaluated after the package is loaded.  A common case
  of this is explained in question 117.

78:  Why does Emacs ignore my X resources (my .Xdefaults file)?

  As of version 19, Emacs searches for X resources in the files specified
  by the XFILESEARCHPATH, XUSERFILESEARCHPATH, and XAPPLRESDIR environment

  For Unix and Unix-like systems, the easiest way is often to compile it
  from scratch.  You will need:

  * Emacs sources.  See question 92 for a list of ftp sites that make them
    available.  On gnudist.gnu.org, the main GNU distribution site, sources are
    available at

      ftp://gnudist.gnu.org/pub/gnu/emacs-20.4.tar.gz

    The above will obviously change as new versions of Emacs come out.  For
    instance, when Emacs 20.5 is released, it will most probably be
    available at

      ftp://gnudist.gnu.org/pub/gnu/emacs-20.5.tar.gz

    Again, you should use one of the mirror sites in question 92 (and
    adjust the URL accordingly) so as to reduce load on gnudist.gnu.org.

  * Gzip, the GNU compression utility.  You can get gzip via anonymous ftp
    at mirrors of gnudist.gnu.org sites; it should compile and install without
    much trouble on most systems.  Once you have retrieved the Emacs
    sources, you will probably be able to uncompress them with the command

      gunzip --verbose emacs-20.4.tar.gz

    changing the Emacs version (20.4), as necessary.  Once gunzip has
    finished doing its job, a file by the name of "emacs-20.4.tar" should
    be in your build directory.

  * Tar, the "tape archiving" program, which moves multiple files into and
    out of archive files, or "tarfiles."  All of the files comprising the
    Emacs source come in a single tarfile, and must be extracted using tar
    before you can build Emacs.  Typically, the extraction command would
    look like

      tar -xvvf emacs-20.4.tar

    The `x' indicates that we want to extract files from this tarfile, the
    two `v's force verbose output, and the `f' tells tar to use a disk
    file, rather than one on tape.

    If you're using GNU tar (available at mirrors of gnudist.gnu.org), you can
    combine this step and the previous one by using the command

      tar -zxvvf emacs-20.4.tar.gz

    The additional `z' at the beginning of the options list tells GNU tar
    to uncompress the file with gunzip before extracting the tarfile's
    components.

  At this point, the Emacs sources (all 25+ megabytes of them) should be
  sitting in a directory called "emacs-20.4".  On most common Unix and
  Unix-like systems, you should be able to compile Emacs (with X Windows
  support) with the following commands:

    cd emacs-20.4       [ change directory to emacs-20.4 ]
    ./configure         [ configure Emacs for your particular system ]
    make                [ use Makefile to build components, then Emacs ]

  If the "make" completes successfully, the odds are fairly good that the
  build has gone well.  (See question 86 if you weren't successful.)

  To install Emacs in its default directories of /usr/local/bin (binaries),
  /usr/local/share/emacs/20.xx (Lisp code and support files),
  /usr/local/libexec/CONFIGURATION/emacs/VERSION (executable files to be
  run by Emacs rather than users), /usr/local/man/man1 (man pages) and
  /usr/local/info (Info documentation), become the super-user and type

    make install

  Note that "make install" will overwrite /usr/local/bin/emacs and any

85:  How do I update Emacs to the latest version?

  Follow the instructions in question 84.

  Emacs places nearly everything in version-specific directories (e.g.,
  /usr/local/share/emacs/20.4), so the only files that can be overwritten
  when installing a new release are /usr/local/bin/emacs and the Emacs Info
  documentation in /usr/local/info.  Back up these files before you install
  a new release, and you shouldn't have too much trouble.

86:  What should I do if I have trouble building Emacs?

  First of all, you should check to make sure that the package isn't
  already available.  For example, typing "M-x apropos RET wordstar RET"
  lists all functions and variables containing the string "wordstar".

  It is also possible that the package is on your system, but has not been
  loaded.  To see which packages are available for loading, look through your
  computer's lisp directory (see question 4) or use the Finder (C-h p) to
  search under keywords.  The Lisp source to most packages contains a
  short description of how they should be loaded, invoked, and configured --
  so before you use or modify a Lisp package, see if the author has provided
  any hints in the source code.

  If a package does not come with Emacs, check the Lisp Code Directory,
  maintained by Dave Brennan <[e-mail]>.  The directory is contained
  in the file LCD-datafile.Z, available from the Emacs Lisp Archive (see
  question 90), and is accessed using the "lispdir" package, available from

  Once you have installed lispdir.el and LCD-datafile, you can use "M-x
  lisp-dir-apropos" to search the listing.  For example, "M-x
  lisp-dir-apropos RET ange-ftp RET" produces this output:

              GNU Emacs Lisp Code Directory Apropos -- "ange-ftp"
     "~/" refers to ftp.cs.ohio-state.edu:pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/

          ange-ftp (4.18)       15-Jul-1992
               Andy Norman, <[e-mail]>
               ~/packages/ange-ftp.tar.Z
               transparent FTP Support for GNU Emacs

  If you find Emacs Lisp code that doesn't appear in the LCD, please submit
  a copy to the LCD (see question 91).

  You can access the Emacs Lisp Archive at the following sites:

    ftp://ftp.cs.ohio-state.edu/pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/
    ftp://calypso-2.oit.unc.edu/pub/gnu/elisp-archive/
    ftp://faui43.informatik.uni-erlangen.de/pub/gnu/elisp-archive/
    ftp://ftp.cs.umn.edu/pub/elisp-archive/
    ftp://ftp.diku.dk/pub/elisp-archive/
    ftp://ftp.uni-mainz.de/pub/gnu/elisp-archive/

        * Any files with names ending in ".Z", ".z", or ".gz" are
          compressed, so you should use "binary" mode in FTP to retrieve
          them.  You should also use binary mode whenever you retrieve any
          files with names ending in ".elc".

  Note that the archive is apparently not being maintained at the time of
  writing; a volunteer to take on the task would be welcome.

  Packages which have been posted to gnu.emacs.sources should be locatable
  via a service like Dejanews.

91:  How do I submit code to the Emacs Lisp Archive?

  Guidelines and procedures for submission to the archive can be found in
  the file GUIDELINES in the archive directory (see question 90).  It
  covers documentation, copyrights, packaging, submission, and the Lisp
  Code Directory Record.  Anonymous FTP uploads are not permitted.
  Instead, all submissions are mailed to [e-mail].
  The lispdir.el package has a function named submit-lcd-entry which will
  help you with this.

  See question 90 regarding non-maintenance of the archive. 

92:  Where can I get other up-to-date GNU stuff?

  The most up-to-date official GNU software is normally kept on
  gnudist.gnu.org and is available at

    ftp://gnudist.gnu.org/pub/gnu

  Read the files etc/DISTRIB and etc/FTP for more information.

  The following sites are all mirror images of the GNU distribution area:

         ftp://labrea.stanford.edu/pub/gnu,
         ftp://mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu/pub/gnu,
         ftp://vixen.cso.uiuc.edu/gnu,
         ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/systems/gnu

  The directory at ftp.uu.net is a mirror of gnudist.gnu.org except that files
  larger than one megabyte are split into multiple parts.  If you have
  trouble transferring large files, you should try that site.  A file
  normally named "XXX" is split into files XXX-split/part[0-9][0-9], and
  there will be a file named XXX-split/README which contains the list of
  parts (especially helpful when FTP-ing by e-mail), their checksums, and
  reassembly instructions.

93:  What is the difference between Emacs and XEmacs (formerly "Lucid
     Emacs")?

  XEmacs is a modified version of GNU Emacs.

  This FAQ refers to the latest version to be distributed by the FSF
  as "Emacs," partly because the XEmacs maintainers now refer to their
  product using the "XEmacs" name, and partly because there isn't any
  accurate way to differentiate between the two without getting mired
  in paragraphs of legalese and history.

  XEmacs, which began life as Lucid Emacs, is based on an early version of
  Emacs 19 and Epoch, an X-aware version of Emacs 18.

  Emacs (i.e., the version distributed by the FSF) has a larger installed
  base and now always contains the MULE multilingual facilities.  XEmacs
  can do some clever tricks with X Windows, such as putting arbitrary
  graphics in a buffer; similar facilities have been implemented for Emacs,
  which will be integrated after version 20.4.  Emacs and XEmacs each come
  with some Lisp packages that are lacking or more up-to-date in the other;
  RMS says that the FSF would include more packages that come with XEmacs,
  but that the XEmacs maintainers don't always keep track of the authors of
  contributed code, which makes it impossible for the FSF to have certain
  legal papers signed.  (Without these legal papers, the FSF will not
  distribute Lisp packages with Emacs.)  The two versions have some
  significant differences at the Lisp programming level.

94:  Where can I get Emacs for my PC running MS-DOS?

  A pre-built binary distribution of Emacs is available from the Simtel
  archives.  This version works under MS-DOS and Windows (3.x, 9x, and NT) and
  supports long file names under Windows 9x.  More information is available
  from:

        ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/gnu/djgpp/v2gnu/emacs.README

  And the binary itself is available in the files

  Zaretskii <[e-mail]> and Darrel Hankerson
  <[e-mail]>, you will need the following:

  Compiler: djgpp version 1.12 maint 1 or later.  Djgpp 2.0 or later is
            recommended, since 1.x is being phased out.  Djgpp 2 supports
            long filenames under Windows 9x.

            You can get the latest release of djgpp by retrieving
            all of the files in

              ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/gnu/djgpp

            16-bit utilities can be found in GNUish:

              ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/gnu/gnuish

  The files INSTALL and etc/PROBLEMS in the Emacs source contains some
  additional information regarding Emacs under MS-DOS.

  For a list of other MS-DOS implementations of Emacs (and Emacs
  look-alikes), consult the list of "Emacs implementations and literature,"
  available at

    ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/comp.emacs/

  Note that while many of these programs look similar to Emacs, they often
  lack certain features, particularly as the Emacs Lisp extension language.

95:  Where can I get Emacs for Microsoft Windows, Windows 9x, or Windows
     NT?

  GNU Emacs has been fully ported to Windows NT and Windows 95/98.  
  If you have MSVC 4.0 or greater, then you can compile GNU Emacs
  directly from the source distribution.  First read the file
  nt/README, and then the file nt/INSTALL, for step by step
  instructions on how to compile and install GNU Emacs on your system.

  You can also download precompiled distributions of GNU Emacs from:

    ftp://ftp.cs.washington.edu/pub/ntemacs

  If you need the gunzip and tar utilities for unpacking distributions,
  you can download precompiled versions from:

    ftp://ftp.cs.washington.edu/pub/ntemacs/utilities

  For more information on configuring your favorite package to run with
  GNU Emacs on Windows NT/95/98, see the following FAQ:

    http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/voelker/ntemacs.html
    ftp://ftp.cs.washington.edu/pub/ntemacs/docs/ntemacs.html

  If you are running Windows 3.11, and if you compile GNU Emacs for MSDOS
  with the tools listed in the previous question, it will run under
  Microsoft Windows in a DOS box.

96:  Where can I get Emacs for my PC running OS/2?

  Emacs 19.33 is ported for emx on OS/2 2.0 or 2.1, and is available at:

  menus, and multiple frames.  You can get it from

    ftp://next-ftp.peak.org/pub/next/apps/emacs/Emacs_for_NeXTstep.4.20a1.NIHS.b.tar.gz

100:  Where can I get Emacs for my Apple computer?


  There used to be a boycott of Apple because of its "look and feel"
  lawsuit.  The lawsuit failed, and the boycott is over.
  Currently the GNU project treats Apple like other computer companies.

  Since the Mac operating system is very different from Unix and GNU,
  support for it would be a big job.  And this job would be tangential
  to the GNU project's goals.  Meanwhile, we don't have the resources
  to do all we want to do on supporting Emacs for GNU-like systems.
  So if we had to do work on support for the Macintosh, that would
  directly harm the GNU project.

  Of course, the same is true for MSDOS and Windows NT.  We decided to
  incorporate support for those systems because the code was very modular,
  because volunteers not only wrote all the code but also investigate
  all the bugs reported on those systems, and because we hoped that we
  will be able to raise funds for GNU using these versions, and in this
  way these ports will make up for the effort that they took.  (We still
  hope so, but it has not happened yet.)

  An unofficial port of GNU Emacs 18.59 to the Macintosh is available at a
  number of ftp sites, the home being

    ftp://ftp.cs.cornell.edu/pub/parmet/Emacs-1.17.sit.bin

103: What is the IP address of XXX.YYY.ZZZ?

  If you are on a Unix machine, try using the "nslookup" command, included
  in the Berkeley BIND package.  For example, to find the IP address of
  "gnudist.gnu.org", you would type

    nslookup gnudist.gnu.org

  Your computer should then provide the IP address of that computer.

  If your site's nameserver is deficient, you can use IP addresses to FTP
  files.  You can get this information by

      [e-mail] (for submissions)
  NOTE: VM 6 is not guaranteed to work under Emacs 20 (although many people
  seem to use it without too much trouble).  Users of Emacs 20 might prefer
  to use VM 5.97, available from the same FTP site.

105: SuperCite -- mail and news citation package within Emacs

  Author: Barry Warsaw <[e-mail]>
  Latest version: 3.1 (comes with Emacs 20)
  Anonymous FTP:
    ftp://ftp.python.org/pub/emacs/sc3.1.tar.gz
  Mailing list:
    [e-mail] (for subscriptions)
    [e-mail] (for submissions)
  NOTE: Superyank is an old version of SuperCite.

106: Calc -- poor man's Mathematica within Emacs

  Author: Dave Gillespie <[e-mail]>
  Latest version: 2.02f
  Anonymous FTP:
    ftp://gnudist.gnu.org/pub/gnu/calc-2.02f.tar.gz
  NOTE: Unlike Wolfram Research, Dave has never threatened to sue
        anyone for having a program with a similar command language to
        Calc.  :-)

107: VIPER -- vi emulation for Emacs

  better than the one distributed with Emacs:

  Author: Aamod Sane <[e-mail]>
  Latest version: 4.3
  Anonymous FTP:
    ftp://ftp.cs.ohio-state.edu/pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/modes/vip-mode.tar.Z

108: AUC TeX -- enhanced LaTeX mode with debugging facilities

  Authors: Kresten Krab Thorup <[e-mail]>
           and Per Abrahamsen <[e-mail]>

113: Mailcrypt -- PGP interface within Emacs mail and news

  Authors: Patrick J. LoPresti <[e-mail]> and 
           Jin S. Choi <[e-mail]>
  Maintainer: Len Budney <[e-mail]>
  Latest version: 3.5b6
  Anonymous FTP:
    http://www.nb.net/~lbudney/linux/software/mailcrypt/mailcrypt-3.5b6.tar.gz
  World Wide Web:
    http://www.nb.net/~lbudney/linux/software/mailcrypt.html

114: Patch -- program to apply "diffs" for updating files

  Author: Larry Wall <[e-mail]> (with GNU modifications)
  Latest version: 2.5
  Anonymous FTP: See question 92


Changing Key Bindings and Handling Key Binding Problems

115: How do I bind keys (including function keys) to commands?

  Keys can be bound to commands either interactively or in your .emacs
  file.  To interactively bind keys for all modes, type

    M-x global-set-key RET KEY CMD RET

  following "trick": First bind the key interactively, then immediately
  type "C-x ESC ESC C-a C-k C-g".  Now, the command needed to bind the key
  is in the kill ring, and can be yanked into your .emacs file.  If the key
  binding is global, no changes to the command are required.  For example,

    (global-set-key [f1] 'help-for-help)

  can be placed directly into the .emacs file.  If the key binding is
  local, the command is used in conjunction with the "add-hook" command.
  For example, in tex-mode, a local binding might be

    (add-hook 'tex-mode-hook
      (lambda ()
        (local-set-key [f1] 'help-for-help)))

  NOTE: * Control characters in key sequences, in the form yanked from the
          kill ring are given in their graphic form -- i.e., CTRL is shown
          as `^', TAB as a set of spaces (usually 8), etc.  You may want to
          convert these into their vector or string forms.

          can be bound to a key and thus treated as a macro.  For example:

           (global-set-key [f10] [?\C-x?\e?\e?\C-a?\C-k?\C-g])  ;;  or
           (global-set-key [f10] "\C-x\e\e\C-a\C-k\C-g")

        * The "kbd" macro is convenient for converting a key description in
          the form used in documentation or printed by C-h c (except that
          function key symbols must be enclosed in angle brackets).  For
          example:

            (global-set-key (kbd "<f1>") 'help-for-help)
            (global-set-key (kbd "C-h") 'help-for-help)
            (local-set-key (kbd "DEL") 'scroll-down)

116: Why does Emacs say "Key sequence XXX uses invalid prefix characters"?

  Usually, one of two things has happened.  In one case, the control
  character in the key sequence has been misspecified (e.g. "C-f" used
  instead of "\C-f" within a Lisp expression).  In the other case, a
  "prefix key" in the keystroke sequence you were trying to bind was

  forms before attempting to bind the key sequence:

    (global-unset-key [?\e ?[])  ;;  or
    (global-unset-key "\e[")

117: Why doesn't this [terminal or window-system setup] code work in my
     .emacs file, but it works just fine after Emacs starts up?

  During startup, Emacs initializes itself according to a given code/file
  order.  If some of the code executed in your .emacs file needs to be
  postponed until the initial terminal or window-system setup code has been

             (cond ((string-match "\\`vt220" (or (getenv "TERM") ""))
                    ;; Make vt220's "Do" key behave like M-x:
                    (global-set-key [do] 'execute-extended-command))
                   ))))

  For information on what Emacs does every time it is started, see
  "Starting Up Emacs" in the Lisp Reference Manual.

118: How do I use function keys under X Windows?

  With Emacs 19, functions keys under X are bound like any other key.  See
  question 115 for details.

119: How do I tell what characters or symbols my function or arrow keys
     emit?

  Type "C-h c" then the function or arrow keys.  The command will return
  either a function key symbol or character sequence (see the Emacs on-line
  documentation for an explanation).  This works for other keys as well.

120: How do I set the X key "translations" for Emacs?

  Emacs is not written using the Xt library by default, so there are no
  "translations" to be set.  (We aren't sure how to set such translations
  if you do build Emacs with Xt; please let us know if you've done this!)

     (define-key function-key-map [M-tab] [?\M-\t])

  defines the "M-TAB" key sequence.

121: How do I handle C-s and C-q being used for flow control?

  C-s and C-q are used in the XON/XOFF flow control protocol.  This messes
  things up when you're using Emacs, because Emacs binds these keys to
  commands by default.  Because Emacs won't honor them as flow control
  characters, too many of these characters are not passed on and overwhelm

    (unless they're smart enough to move it to another name).

    For further discussion of this issue, read the file PROBLEMS (in the
    top-level directory when you unpack the Emacs source).

122: How do I bind `C-s' and `C-q' (or any key) if these keys are filtered
     out?

  To bind `C-s' and `C-q', use either "enable-flow-control" or
  "enable-flow-control-on".  See question 121 for usage and implementation
  details.

  To bind other keys, use "keyboard-translate".  See question 125 for usage
  details.  To do this for an entire site, you should swap the keys in
  lisp/site-start.el.  See question 121 for an explanation of why
  lisp/default.el should not be used.

  NOTE: * If you do this for an entire site, the users will be confused by
          the disparity between what the documentation says and how Emacs
          actually behaves.

123: Why does the "Backspace" key invoke help?

  The "Backspace" key (on most keyboards) generates ASCII code 8.  `C-h'
  sends the same code.  In Emacs by default `C-h' invokes help-command.
  This is intended to be easy to remember since the first letter of "help"
  is `h'.  The easiest solution to this problem is to use `C-h' (and

  * Under X or on a dumb terminal, it is possible to swap the Backspace and
    Delete keys inside Emacs:

      (keyboard-translate ?\C-h ?\C-?)

    See question 125 for further details of "keyboard-translate".

  * Another approach is to switch key bindings and put help on "C-x h"
    instead:

      (global-set-key "\C-h" 'delete-backward-char)

    Other popular key bindings for help are M-? and "C-x ?".

    NOTE: * Don't try to bind DEL to help-command, because there are many
            modes that have local bindings of DEL that will interfere.

124: Why doesn't Emacs look at the stty settings for Backspace vs. Delete?

  Good question!

125: How do I "swap" two keys?

  In Emacs 19, you can swap two keys (or key sequences) by using the
  "keyboard-translate" function.  For example, to turn `C-h' into DEL and
  DEL to `C-h', use

  up in keymaps contain the characters that result from keyboard
  translation.

  Also see "Keyboard Translations" in the on-line manual.

126: How do I produce C-XXX with my keyboard?

  On terminals (but not under X), some common "aliases" are:

            C-2  or  C-SPC         for      C-@
            C-6                    for      C-^

  Often other aliases exist; use the "C-h c" command and try `CTRL' with
  all of the digits on your keyboard to see what gets generated.  You can
  also try the "C-h w" command if you know the name of the command.

127: What if I don't have a Meta key?

  Instead of typing "M-a", you can type "ESC a".  In fact, Emacs converts
  M-a internally into "ESC a" anyway (depending on the value of
  meta-prefix-char).  Note that you press "Meta" and `a' together, while
  you press `ESC', release it, and then press `a'.

128: What if I don't have an Escape key?

  Type `C-[' instead.  This should send ASCII code 27 just like an Escape
  key would.  `C-3' may also work on some terminal (but not under X).  For
  many terminals (notably DEC terminals) `F11' generates ESC.  If not, the
  following form can be used to bind it:

  (define-key function-key-map [f11] [?\e])  ; F11 is the documented ESC
                                             ; replacement on DEC terminals.

129: Can I make my "Compose Character" key behave like a Meta key?

  On a dumb terminal such as a VT220, no.  It is rumored that certain VT220
  clones could have their Compose key configured this way.  If you're using
  X, you might be able to do this with the "xmodmap" program.

130: How do I bind a combination of modifier key and function key?

  With Emacs 19 you can represent modified function keys in vector format
  by adding prefixes to the function key symbol.  For example (from the
  on-line documentation):

  "C-", "M-", "H-", "s-", "A-", and "S-" to the symbol name.  Here is how
  to make "Hyper-Meta-RIGHT" move forward a word:

           (global-set-key [H-M-right] 'forward-word)

  In recent Emacs versions this may also be written as:

           (global-set-key [(hyper meta right)] 'forward-word)

  NOTE: * Not all modifiers are permitted in all situations.  Hyper, Super,
          and Alt are available only under X (provided there are such
          keys).  Non-ASCII keys and mouse events (e.g. "C-=" and
          "mouse-1") also fall under this category.

  See question 115 for general key binding instructions.

131: Why doesn't my Meta key work in an xterm window?

  Try all of these methods before asking for further help:

  * You may have big problems using "mwm" as your window manager.  {Does
    anyone know a good generic solution to allow the use of the Meta key in

      XTerm.VT100.Translations: #override \
        Meta<KeyPress>: string(0x1b) insert()

    You might have to replace "Meta" with "Alt".

132: Why doesn't my ExtendChar key work as a Meta key under HP-UX 8.0
     and 9.x?

  This is a result of an internationalization extension in X11R4 and the
  fact that HP is now using this extension.  Emacs assumes that
  XLookupString returns the same result regardless of the Meta key state

  may be undesirable if you actually intend to use them.


Using Emacs with Alternate Character Sets

133: How do I make Emacs display 8-bit characters?

  Emacs 19 introduced built-in support for 8-bit characters.  Emacs 20 can
  operate similarly in Unibyte mode or else in Multibyte mode.  See the
  "International" node in the online manual, specifically "Single-Byte
  European Support".

134: How do I input 8-bit characters?

  Again, see the "International" node of the on-line manual.

135: Where can I get an Emacs that handles kanji, Chinese, or other
     character sets?

  Emacs 20 now includes many of the features of MULE, the Multilingual
  Enhancement of Emacs.  See question 84 for information on where to find
  and download Emacs.

  The original MULE is available at

    ftp://sh.wide.ad.jp/JAPAN/mule/mule-19.33-delta.tar.gz

136: Where is an Emacs that can handle Semitic (right-to-left) alphabets?

  Emacs 20 supports Hebrew characters (ISO 8859-8), but does not yet
  support right-to-left character entry.

  Joel M. Hoffman <[e-mail]> has written a Lisp package called

  ftp sites in Israel may also have the necessary files.


Mail and News

137: How do I change the included text prefix in mail/news followups?

  If you read mail with Rmail or news with Gnus, set the variable
  mail-yank-prefix.  For VM, set vm-included-text-prefix.  For mh-e, set
  mh-ins-buf-prefix.

  For fancier control of citations, use SuperCite.  See question 105.

  To prevent Emacs from including various headers of the replied-to
  message, set the value of mail-yank-ignored-headers to an appropriate
  regexp.

138: How do I save a copy of outgoing mail?

  You can either mail yourself a copy by including a "BCC:" header in the
  mail message, or store a copy of the message directly to a file by
  including an "FCC:" header.

  putting something like the following in your .emacs file:

    (setq mail-archive-file-name (expand-file-name "~/outgoing"))

  The output file will be in Unix mail format, which can be read directly
  by VM, but not always by Rmail.  See question 140.

  For Gnus, see the `Archived Messages node of the Gnus manual.

  If you use mh-e, add an "FCC:" or "BCC:" field to your components file.

  It does not work to put "set record filename" in the .mailrc file.

139: Why doesn't Emacs expand my aliases when sending mail?

  * You must separate multiple addresses in the headers of the mail buffer
    with commas.  This is because Emacs supports RFC822 standard addresses
    like this one:

    Note that the aliases are expanded automatically only after you type
    RET or a punctuation character (e.g. `,').  You can force their
    expansion by moving point to the end of the alias and typing "C-x a e"
    (M-x expand-abbrev).

140: Why does Rmail think all my saved messages are one big message?

  A file created through the FCC: field in a message is in Unix mail
  format, not the format that Rmail uses (BABYL format).  Rmail will try to
  convert a Unix mail file into BABYL format on input, but sometimes it
  makes errors.  For guaranteed safety, you can make the saved-messages
  file be an inbox for your Rmail file by using the function
  set-rmail-inbox-list.

141: How can I sort the messages in my Rmail folder?

  In Rmail, type "C-c C-s C-h" to get a list of sorting functions and their
  key bindings.

142: Why does Rmail need to write to /usr/spool/mail?

  This is the behavior of the "movemail" program which Rmail uses.  This
  indicates that movemail is configured to use lock files.

  RMS writes:

    mail.  You simply must arrange to let movemail write them.

    Other systems use the flock system call to interlock access.  On these
    systems, you should configure movemail to use flock.

143: How do I recover my mail files after Rmail munges their format?

  If you have just done rmail-input on a file and you don't want to save it
  in Rmail's format (called BABYL), just kill the buffer (with C-x k).

  If you typed M-x rmail and it read some messages out of your inbox and

  If you want to convert an existing file from BABYL format to Unix mail
  format, use the command M-x unrmail: it will prompt you for the input and
  output file names.

144: How can I force Rmail to reply to the sender of a message, but not the
  other recipients?

  Ron Isaacson <[e-mail]> says: When you hit "r" to reply in
  Rmail, by default it CCs all of the original recipients (everyone on the
  original "To" and "CC" lists). With a prefix argument (i.e., typing "C-u"

    (add-hook 'rmail-mode-hook
      '(lambda ()
         (define-key rmail-mode-map "r" 'rmail-reply-t)
         (define-key rmail-mode-map "R" 'rmail-reply)))

145: How can I get my favorite Emacs mail package to support MIME?  

  Look at the Emacs MIME FAQ, maintained by MacDonald Hall Jackson
  <[e-mail]> at

    http://bmrc.berkeley.edu/~trey/emacs/mime.html

  Version 6.x of VM supports MIME.  See question 104.

  MIME support has been added in the development version of Gnus which will
  be included with a future version of Emacs.

146: How do I make Emacs automatically start my mail/news reader?

  To start Emacs in Gnus:

    emacs -f gnus

  It is probably unwise to automatically start your mail or news reader
  from your .emacs file.  This would cause problems if you needed to run
  two copies of Emacs at one time.  Also, this would make it difficult for
  you to start Emacs quickly when you needed to.

147: How do I read news under Emacs?

  Use M-x gnus.  It is documented in Info (see question 14).

148: Why doesn't Gnus work via NNTP?

  There is a bug in NNTP version 1.5.10, such that when multiple requests
  are sent to the NNTP server, the server only handles the first one before
  blocking waiting for more input which never comes.  NNTP version 1.5.11
  claims to fix this.

  (i.e., "telnet server-machine 119").  The server should give its version
  number in the welcome message.  Type "quit" to get out.

  Also see question 75 in this FAQ for some additional ideas.

149: How do I view news articles with embedded underlining (e.g.,
     ClariNews)?

  Underlining appears like this:

    _^Hu_^Hn_^Hd_^He_^Hr_^Hl_^Hi_^Hn_^Hi_^Hn_^Hg

  Use Gnus' "Overstrike" function from the Article -> Washing menu (or type
  "W o").  You can do this for all articles with:

    (add-hook 'gnus-article-prepare-hook 'gnus-article-treat-overstrike)

  If you prefer to do away with underlining altogether, you can
  destructively remove it with M-x ununderline-region; do this
  automatically via

    (add-hook 'gnus-article-prepare-hook
      (lambda () (ununderline-region (point-min) (point-max))))

  See the Gnus manual for more information about this and similar methods
  for treating article contents.

150: How do I save all the items of a multi-part posting in Gnus?

  Use gnus-uu.  Type C-c C-v C-h in the Gnus summary buffer to see a list
  of available commands.

151: How do I make Gnus start up faster?

  From the Gnus FAQ (see question 157):

   Pranav Kumar Tiwari <[e-mail]> writes: I posted the same
   query recently and I got an answer to it. I am going to repeat the
   answer. What you need is a newer version of gnus, version 5.0.4+. I am
   using 5.0.12 and it works fine with me with the following settings:

    (setq gnus-check-new-newsgroups nil
          gnus-read-active-file 'some
          gnus-nov-is-evil nil
          gnus-select-method '(nntp gnus-nntp-server))

152: How do I catch up all newsgroups in Gnus?

  In the "*Newsgroup*" buffer, type the following magical incantation:

    M-< C-x ( c y C-x ) M-0 C-x e

  Leave off the "M-<" if you only want to catch up from point to the end of
  the "*Newsgroup" buffer.

153: Why can't I kill in Gnus based on the Newsgroups/Keywords/Control
     headers?

  Gnus will complain that the "Newsgroups:", "Keywords:", and "Control:"
  headers are "Unknown header" fields.

  If you really want to kill on one of these headers, you can do it like
  this:

    (gnus-kill nil "^Newsgroups: .*\\(bad\\.group\\|worse\\.group\\)")

154: How do I get rid of flashing messages in Gnus for slow connections?

  Set nntp-debug-read to nil.

155: Why is catch up slow in Gnus?

  Because Gnus is marking crosspostings read.  You can control this with
  the variable gnus-use-cross-reference.

156: Why does Gnus hang for a long time when posting?

  David Lawrence <[e-mail]> explains:

    The problem is almost always interaction between NNTP and C News.  NNTP
    POST asks C News's inews to not background itself but rather hang

    rather use newsspool.  This loses some error-catching functionality,
    but is for the most part safe as inews will detect a lot of the errors
    on its own.  The C News folks have sped up inews, too, so speed should
    look better to most folks as that update propagates around.

157: Where can I find out more about Gnus?

  Visit http://www.gnus.org/, which has a pointer to the current Gnus FAQ and
  more information.  The relevant newsgroup is gnu.emacs.gnus.

------------------------------------------------------------
Modified, with permission, for the Emacs 20.4 distribution by Dave Love.

Copyright 1994-1998 Reuven M. Lerner
Copyright 1992-1993 Steven Byrnes
Copyright 1990-1992 Joseph Brian Wells

This list of frequently asked questions about GNU Emacs with answers

24073:633699bb2aae

                       GNU Emacs FAQ: Introduction

This is the introduction to a list of frequently asked questions (FAQ)
about GNU Emacs 20 with answers.  Some of the answers are not valid for GNU
Emacs 18 or 19.

The FAQ is posted (in five parts) to reduce the noise level in the
gnu.emacs.help newsgroup (which is also the help-gnu-emacs mailing list)
which results from the repetition of frequently asked questions, wrong
answers to these questions, corrections to the wrong answers, corrections

65:  How do I delete menus and menu options?
66:  How do I turn on syntax highlighting?
67:  How can I force Emacs to scroll only one line when I move past the
     bottom of the screen?
68:  How can I replace highlighted text with what I type?
69:  How can I edit MS-DOS files using Emacs?
70:  How can I tell Emacs to fill paragraphs with a single space after
     each period?

Bugs/Problems

91:  How do I submit code to the Emacs Lisp Archive?
92:  Where can I get other up-to-date GNU stuff?
93:  What is the difference between Emacs and XEmacs (formerly "Lucid
     Emacs")?
94:  Where can I get Emacs for my PC running MS-DOS?
95:  Where can I get Emacs for Microsoft Windows, Windows '95, or Windows
     NT?
96:  Where can I get Emacs for my PC running OS/2?
97:  Where can I get Emacs for my Atari ST?
98:  Where can I get Emacs for my Amiga?
99:  Where can I get Emacs for NeXTSTEP?

103: What is the IP address of XXX.YYY.ZZZ?

Major Emacs Lisp Packages, Emacs Extensions, and Related Programs

104: VM (View Mail) -- another mail reader within Emacs, with MIME support
105: Supercite -- mail and news citation package within Emacs
106: Calc -- poor man's Mathematica within Emacs
107: VIPER -- vi emulation for Emacs
108: AUC TeX -- enhanced LaTeX mode with debugging facilities
109: BBDB -- personal Info Rolodex integrated with mail/news readers
110: Ispell -- spell checker in C with interface for Emacs
111: W3-mode -- A World Wide Web browser inside of Emacs
112: EDB -- Database program for Emacs; replaces forms editing modes
113: Mailcrypt -- PGP interface within Emacs mail and news
114: JDE -- Development environment for Java programming
115: Patch -- program to apply "diffs" for updating files

Changing Key Bindings and Handling Key Binding Problems

116: How do I bind keys (including function keys) to commands?
117: Why does Emacs say "Key sequence XXX uses invalid prefix characters"?
118: Why doesn't this [terminal or window-system setup] code work in my
     .emacs file, but it works just fine after Emacs starts up?
119: How do I use function keys under X Windows?
120: How do I tell what characters or symbols my function or arrow keys
     emit?
121: How do I set the X key "translations" for Emacs?
122: How do I handle C-s and C-q being used for flow control?
123: How do I bind `C-s' and `C-q' (or any key) if these keys are filtered
     out?
124: Why does the "Backspace" key invoke help?
125: Why doesn't Emacs look at the stty settings for Backspace vs. Delete?
126: How do I "swap" two keys?
127: How do I produce C-XXX with my keyboard?
128: What if I don't have a Meta key?
129: What if I don't have an Escape key?
130: Can I make my "Compose Character" key behave like a Meta key?
131: How do I bind a combination of modifier key and function key?
132: Why doesn't my Meta key work in an xterm window?
133: Why doesn't my ExtendChar key work as a Meta key under HP-UX 8.0
     and 9.x?

Using Emacs with Alternate Character Sets

134: How do I make Emacs display 8-bit characters?
135: How do I input 8-bit characters?
136: Where can I get an Emacs that handles kanji, Chinese, or other
     character sets?
137: Where is an Emacs that can handle Semitic (right-to-left) alphabets?

Mail and News

138: How do I change the included text prefix in mail/news followups?
139: How do I save a copy of outgoing mail?
140: Why doesn't Emacs expand my aliases when sending mail?
141: Why does Rmail think all my saved messages are one big message?
142: How can I sort the messages in my Rmail folder?
143: Why does Rmail need to write to /usr/spool/mail?
144: How do I recover my mail files after Rmail munges their format?
145: How can I force Rmail to reply to the sender of a message, but not the
  other recipients?
146: How can I get my favorite Emacs mail package to support MIME?  
147: How do I make Emacs automatically start my mail/news reader?
148: How do I read news under Emacs?
149: Why doesn't Gnus work via NNTP?
150: How do I view news articles with embedded underlining (e.g.,
     ClariNews)?
151: How do I save all the items of a multi-part posting in Gnus?
152: How do I make Gnus start up faster?
153: How do I catch up all newsgroups in Gnus?
154: Why can't I kill in Gnus based on the Newsgroups/Keywords/Control
     headers?
155: How do I get rid of flashing messages in Gnus for slow connections?
156: Why is catch up slow in Gnus?
157: Why does Gnus hang for a long time when posting?
158: Where can I find out more about Gnus?

------------------------------------------------------------

If you are viewing this text in a GNU Emacs Buffer, you can type "M-2 C-x
$" to get an overview of just the questions.  Then, when you want to look
at the text of the answers, just type "C-x $".

To search for a question numbered XXX, type "M-C-s ^XXX:", followed by a
C-r if that doesn't work.  Type RET to end the search.

If you have w3-mode installed (see question 111), you can visit ftp and
HTTP uniform resource locators (URLs) by placing the cursor on the URL and
typing M-x w3-follow-url-at-point.

The FAQ is posted in five parts; if you are missing a section or would
prefer to read the FAQ in a single file, see question 22.

------------------------------------------------------------
  Time-stamp: <1998-11-15 12:37:16 reuven>


Notation Used in FAQ

  Skip this section and then come back if you don't understand some of the

1:   What do these mean: C-h, M-C-a, RET, "ESC a", etc.?

  C-x: press the `x' key while holding down the Control key

  M-x: press the `x' key while holding down the Meta key (if your computer
       doesn't have a Meta key, see question 128)

  M-C-x: press the `x' key while holding down both Control and Meta
  C-M-x: a synonym for the above

  LFD: Linefeed or Newline; same as C-j
  RET: Return, sometimes marked Enter; same as C-m
  DEL: Delete,  usually not the same as Backspace; same as C-? (See
       question 124 if deleting invokes Emacs help)
  ESC: Escape; same as C-[
  TAB: Tab; same as C-i
  SPC: Space bar

  Key sequences longer than one key (and some single-key sequences) are

  years, although there may be some unintentional gaps in coverage.  The
  archive is not particularly well organized or easy to retrieve individual
  postings from, but pretty much everything is there.  The latest archives
  are available at
 
    ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/MailingListArchives/current

  Web-based Usenet search services, such as DejaNews, also archive the
  gnu.* groups.  You can reach DejaNews at

    http://www.dejanews.com

  The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual is also available on-line, in Info
  format.  Texinfo source for the manual (along with pregenerated Info
  files) is available at

    ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/elisp-manual-20-2.5.tar.gz

  and all mirrors of ftp.gnu.org (See question 92 for a list).  See
  question 17 if you want to install the Info files, or question 18 if you
  want to use the Texinfo source to print the manual yourself.

  WWW versions of the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual are available at

  First, you must turn the Texinfo files into Info files.  You may do this
  using the stand-alone "makeinfo" program, available as part of the latest
  Texinfo package at

    ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/texinfo-3.12.tar.gz

  and all mirrors of ftp.gnu.org (see question 92 for a list).

  For information about the Texinfo format, read the Texinfo manual which
  comes with Emacs.  This manual also comes installed in Info format, so
  you can read it on-line.

  2. Edit the file info/dir in the installed Emacs distribution, and add a
     line for the top level node in the Info package that you are
     installing.  Follow the examples already in this file.  The format is:

       * Topic: (relative-pathname).  Short description of topic.

  If you want to install Info files and you don't have the necessary
  privileges, you have several options:

  * Info files don't actually need to be installed before being used.  You

  5. Print the DVI file XXX.dvi in the normal way for printing DVI files at
     your site.

  To get more general instructions, retrieve the latest Texinfo package
  mentioned in question 17.

19:  Can I view Info files without using Emacs?

  Yes.  Here are some alternative programs:

    Texinfo package.  See question 17 for details.

  * Xinfo, a stand-alone version of the Info program that runs under X
    Windows.  You can get it at

      ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/xinfo-1.01.01.tar.gz

    and all mirrors of ftp.gnu.org (See question 92 for a list).

  * Tkinfo, an Info viewer that runs under X Windows and uses Tcl/Tk.  You
    can get Tkinfo at

      http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/tkinfo/

                 UNIX-compatible software system with BYTE editors
    LPF -- Why you should join the League for Programming Freedom
    MACHINES -- Status of Emacs on Various Machines and Systems
    MAILINGLISTS -- GNU Project Electronic Mailing Lists
    NEWS -- Emacs news, a history of user-visible changes
    SERVICE -- GNU Service Directory
    SUN-SUPPORT -- including "Using Emacstool with GNU Emacs"

  Latest versions of the above files also available at

    ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/GNUinfo/

  More GNU information, including back issues of the "GNU's Bulletin", are at

    http://www.gnu.org/bulletins/bulletins.html
    http://www.cs.pdx.edu/~trent/gnu/gnu.html

  See question 84 for some basic installation hints, and question 83 if you
  have problems with the installation.

  The file etc/SERVICE (see question 4 if you're not sure where that is)
  lists companies and individuals willing to sell you help in installing or
  using Emacs.  An up-to-date version this file is available on ftp.gnu.org
  (see question 20).

22:  Where can I get the latest version of this document (the FAQ list)?

  The Emacs FAQ is available in several ways:

    If the FAQ articles have expired and been deleted from your news spool,
    it might (or might not) do some good to complain to your news
    administrator, because the most recent FAQ should not expire for a
    while.

  * Via HTTP or FTP.  You can always fetch the latest FAQ at

      http://www.lerner.co.il/emacs/

    and

      ftp://ftp.lerner.co.il/pub/emacs/

  * In the Emacs distribution.  Since Emacs 18.56, the FAQ at the time of
    release has been part of the Emacs distribution as etc/FAQ (see
    question 4).

  For some not-so-serious alternative reasons for Emacs to have that name,
  check out etc/JOKES (see question 4).

24:  What is the latest version of Emacs?

  Emacs 20.3 is the current version as of this writing.

25:  What is different about Emacs 20?

  To find out what has changed in recent versions, type C-h n (M-x
  view-emacs-news).  The oldest changes are at the bottom of the file, so

  of MULE code for languages that use non-Latin characters, the "customize"
  facility for modifying variables without having to use Lisp, and
  automatic conversion of files from Macintosh, Microsoft, and Unix
  platforms.

  A number of older Lisp packages, such as Gnus, Supercite and the
  calendar/diary, have been updated and enhanced to work with Emacs 20, and
  are now included with the standard distribution.


Common Things People Want To Do

26:  How do I set up a .emacs file properly?

  because it causes confusing non-standard behavior.  Then they send
  questions to help-gnu-emacs asking why Emacs isn't behaving as
  documented.  :-)

  Emacs 20 includes the new "customize" facility, which can be invoked
  using M-x customize RET.  This allows users who are unfamiliar with Emacs
  Lisp to modify their .emacs files in a relatively straightforward way,
  using menus rather than Lisp code.  Not all packages support Customize as
  of this writing, but the number is growing fairly steadily.

  While Customize might indeed make it easier to configure Emacs, consider
  taking a bit of time to learn Emacs Lisp and modifying your .emacs
  directly. Simple configuration options are described rather completely in
  the "Init File" section of the on-line manual, for users interested in

  buffer will display the Lisp code from your .emacs file that caused the
  problem.

  You can also evaluate an individual function or argument to a function in
  your .emacs file by moving the cursor to the end of the function or
  argument and typing "C-x C-e" (M-x eval-last-sexp).

  Use "C-h v" (M-x describe-variable) to check the value of variables which
  you are trying to set or use.

28:  How do I make Emacs display the current line (or column) number?

  To have Emacs automatically display the current line number of the point
  in the mode line, do "M-x line-number-mode".  You can also put the form

    (setq line-number-mode t)

  in your .emacs file to achieve this whenever you start Emacs.  Note that
  Emacs will not display the line number if the buffer is larger than the
  value of the variable line-number-display-limit.
 
  As of Emacs 20, you can similarly display the current column with "M-x
  column-number-mode", or by putting the form

    (setq column-number-mode t) 

  in your .emacs file.

  The "%c" format specifier in the variable mode-line-format will insert
  the current column's value into the mode line.  See the documentation for
  mode-line-format (using "C-h v mode-line-format RET") for more
  information on how to set and use this variable.

  Users of all Emacs versions can display the current column using Per
  Abrahamsen's <[e-mail]> "column" package.  See question 90 for
  instructions on how to get it.

  None of the vi emulation modes provide the "set number" capability of vi
  (as far as we know).

29:  How can I modify the titlebar to contain the current filename?

  The contains of an Emacs frame's titlebar is controlled by the variable
  frame-title-format, which has the same structure as the variable

    (condition-case ()
       (quietly-read-abbrev-file)
      (file-error nil))

    (add-hook 'XXX-mode-hook
              (function
                (lambda ()
                 (setq abbrev-mode t))))

31:  How do I turn on auto-fill mode by default?

  To turn on auto-fill mode just once for one buffer, use "M-x
  auto-fill-mode".

  for that mode.  For example, to turn on auto-fill mode for all text
  buffers, including the following in your .emacs file:

    (add-hook 'text-mode-hook 'turn-on-auto-fill)

  If you want auto-fill mode on in all major modes, do this:

    (setq-default auto-fill-function 'do-auto-fill)

32:  How do I make Emacs use a certain major mode for certain files?

  If you want to use XXX mode for all files which end with the extension
  ".YYY", this will do it for you:

    (setq auto-mode-alist (cons '("\\.YYY\\'" . XXX-mode) auto-mode-alist))

  Otherwise put this somewhere in the first line of any file you want to
  edit in XXX mode (in the second line, if the first line begins with
  "#!"):

  If you are using a windowing system such as X, you can cause the region
  to be highlighted when the mark is active by including

        (transient-mark-mode t)

  in your .emacs file.  (Also see question 66.)

35:  How do I control Emacs's case-sensitivity when searching/replacing?

  For searching, the value of the variable case-fold-search determines
  whether they are case sensitive:

    (setq case-fold-search nil) ; make searches case sensitive
    (setq case-fold-search t)   ; make searches case insensitive

  Similarly, for replacing the variable case-replace determines whether
  replacements preserve case.

  To change the case sensitivity just for one major mode, use the major
  mode's hook.  For example:

    (add-hook 'XXX-mode-hook
          (function
           (lambda ()
             (setq case-fold-search nil))))

36:  How do I make Emacs wrap words for me?

  Use auto-fill mode, activated by typing "M-x auto-fill-mode".  The
  default maximum line width is 70, determined by the variable fill-column.

    execution of arbitrary Emacs Lisp forms and does not require the client
    program to wait for completion.

    The alpha version of an enhanced version of gnuserv is available at

        ftp://ftp.wellfleet.com/netman/psmith/emacs/gnuserv-2.1alpha.tar.gz

41:  How do I make Emacs recognize my compiler's funny error messages?

  The variable compilation-error-regexp-alist helps control how Emacs
  parses your compiler output.  It is a list of triples of the form:

  the comments included for this variable are quite useful -- the regular
  expressions required for your compiler's output may be very close to one
  already provided.  Once you have determined the proper regexps, use the
  following to inform Emacs of your changes:

        (setq compilation-error-regexp-alist
              (cons '(REGEXP FILE-IDX LINE-IDX)
                 compilation-error-regexp-alist))

42:  How do I indent switch statements like this?

  Many people want to indent their switch statements like this:

    f()
    {

  M-x overwrite-mode (a minor mode).  This toggles overwrite-mode on and
  off, so exiting from overwrite-mode is as easy as another M-x
  overwrite-mode.

  On some workstations, the "Insert" key toggles overwrite-mode on and off.

45:  How do I stop Emacs from beeping on a terminal?

  Martin R. Frank <[e-mail]> writes:

      ... :vb=: ...                    

    And evaluate the following Lisp form:

      (setq visible-bell t)

46:  How do I turn down the bell volume in Emacs running under X Windows?

  You can adjust the bell volume and duration for all programs with the
  shell command xset.

           b [vol [pitch [dur]]]          b on

47:  How do I tell Emacs to automatically indent a new line to the
     indentation of the previous line?

  Such behavior is automatic in Emacs 20.  From the NEWS file for Emacs
  20.2:

    ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.  This makes
    it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode in Text mode,
    and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).  TAB in Text mode
    now runs the command indent-relative; this makes a practical difference

  cursor) is located over one.  To load paren automatically, include the
  line

    (require 'paren)

  in your .emacs file.  Alan Shutko <[e-mail]> reports that
  as of version 20.1, you must also call show-paren-mode in your .emacs
  file:

    (show-paren-mode 1)

  The "customize" facility will let you turn on show-paren-mode.  Use M-x
  customize-group RET paren-showing RET.  From within customize, you can
  also go directly to the "paren-showing" group.

    can train it to skip over balanced brackets and braces at the same time
    by modifying the syntax table.)

  * Here is some Emacs Lisp that will make the % key show the matching
    parenthesis, like in vi.  In addition, if the cursor isn't over a
    parenthesis, it simply inserts a % like normal.

      ;; By an unknown contributor

      (global-set-key "%" 'match-paren)

50:  Is there an equivalent to the `.' (dot) command of vi?

  (`.' is the redo command in vi.  It redoes the last insertion/deletion.)

  The next version of 

  No, not really, because Emacs doesn't have a special insertion mode.

  You can type "C-x ESC ESC" (repeat-complex-command) to reinvoke commands
  that used the minibuffer to get arguments.  In repeat-complex-command you
  can type M-p and M-n to scan through all the different complex commands
  you've typed.

  To repeat a set of commands, use keyboard macros.  (See "Keyboard Macros"
  in the on-line manual.)

  If you're really desperate for the `.' command, use VIPER, which comes
  with Emacs, and which appears to support it.  (See question 107.)

51:  What are the valid X resource settings (i.e., stuff in .Xdefaults)?

  See Emacs man page, or "Resources X" in the on-line manual.

  RET".

  To do this to a region, use "string-rectangle" ("C-x r t").  Set the mark
  (`C-SPC') at the beginning of the first line you want to prefix, move the
  cursor to last line to be prefixed, and type "C-x r t > RET".  To do this
  for the whole buffer, type "C-x h C-x r t > RET".

  If you are trying to prefix a yanked mail message with '>', you might
  want to set the variable mail-yank-prefix.  Better yet, get the Supercite
  package (see question 105), which provides flexible citation for yanked
  mail and news messages.

55:  How do I insert "_^H" before each character in a region to get an
     underlined paragraph?

  command dired-do-query-replace, which allows users to replace regular
  expressions in multiple files.

61:  Where is the documentation for "etags"?

  The "etags" man page should be in the same place as the "emacs" man page.

  Quick command-line switch descriptions are also available.  For example,
  "etags -H".

62:  How do I disable backup files?

    (setq initial-dired-omit-files-p t)

  If you're tired of seeing backup files whenever you do an "ls" at the
  Unix shell, try GNU ls with the "-B" option.  GNU ls is part of the GNU
  fileutils package, available at mirrors of ftp.gnu.org (see question 92).

  To disable or change how backups are made, see "Backup Names" in the
  on-line manual.

63:  How do I disable auto-save-mode?

  To move a menu option from one position to another, simply evaluate
  define-key-after with the appropriate final argument.

  More detailed information -- and more examples of how to create and
  modify menu options -- are in the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual, under
  "Keymaps."  (See question 16 for information on this manual.)

65:  How do I delete menus and menu options?

  The simplest way to remove a menu is to set its keymap to nil.  For
  example, to delete the "Words" menu (from question 64), use:

  To turn font-lock mode on within an existing buffer, use "M-x
  font-lock-mode RET".

  To automatically invoke font-lock mode when a particular major mode is
  invoked, set the major mode's hook.  For example, to fontify all c-mode
  buffers, add the following to your .emacs file:

    (add-hook 'c-mode-hook 'turn-on-font-lock)

  To automatically invoke font-lock mode for all major modes, you can turn
  on global-font-lock mode by including the following line in your .emacs
  file:

    (global-font-lock-mode 1)

  This instructs Emacs to turn on font-lock mode in those buffers for which
  a font-lock mode definition has been provided (in the variable
  font-lock-global-modes).  If you edit a file in pie-ala-mode, and no
  font-lock definitions have been provided for pie-ala files, then the
  above setting will have no effect on that particular buffer.

  Highlighting with font-lock mode can take quite a while, and thus
  different levels of decoration are available, from slight to gaudy.  To
  control how decorated your buffers should become, set the value of
  font-lock-maximum-decoration in your .emacs file, with a nil value

  Also see the documentation for the function font-lock-mode, available by
  typing C-h f font-lock-mode ("M-x describe-function RET font-lock-mode
  RET").

  For more information on font-lock mode, take a look at the font-lock mode
  FAQ, maintained by Jari Aalto <[e-mail]> at

    ftp://cs.uta.fi/pub/ssjaaa/ema-font.gui

  To print buffers with the faces (i.e., colors and fonts) intact, use
  "M-x ps-print-buffer-with-faces" or "M-x ps-print-region-with-faces".

67:  How can I force Emacs to scroll only one line when I move past the

    When OFF, typed text is just inserted at point.

  This mode also allows you to delete (not kill) the highlighted region by
  pressing DEL.

69:  How can I edit MS-DOS files using Emacs?

  As of Emacs 20, detection and handling of MS-DOS (and Windows) files is
  performed transparently. You can open MS-DOS files on a Unix system, edit
  it, and save it without having to worry about the file format.

  When editing an MS-DOS style file, a backslash (\) will appear in the
  mode line.

  If you are running an earlier version of Emacs, get crypt++ from the
  Emacs Lisp Archive (see question 90).  Among other things, crypt++
  transparently modifies MS-DOS files as they are loaded and saved,
  allowing you to ignore the different conventions that Unix and MS-DOS
  have for delineating the end of a line.

70:  How can I tell Emacs to fill paragraphs with a single space after

  Ulrich Mueller <[e-mail]> suggests adding the following two
  lines to your .emacs file:

    (setq sentence-end "[.?!][]\"')}]*\\($\\|[ \t]\\)[ \t\n]*")
    (setq sentence-end-double-space nil)


Bugs/Problems

71:  Does Emacs have problems with files larger than 8 megabytes?

    pointers.

72:  How do I get rid of ^M or echoed commands in my shell buffer?

  Try typing "M-x shell-strip-ctrl-m RET" while in shell-mode to make them
  go away.  If that doesn't work, you have several options:

  For tcsh, put this in your .cshrc (or .tcshrc) file:

    if ($?EMACS) then
        if ("$EMACS" == t) then

  You should also check for other programs named "env" in your path (e.g.,
  SunOS has a program named /usr/bin/env).  We don't understand why this
  can cause a failure and don't know a general solution for working around
  the problem in this case.

  The "make clean" command will remove "env" and other vital programs, so
  be careful when using it.

  It has been reported that this sometimes happened when Emacs was started
  as an X client from an xterm window (i.e., had a controlling tty) but the
  xterm was later terminated.

  See also PROBLEMS (in the top-level directory when you unpack the Emacs
  source) for other possible causes of this message.

74:  Where is the termcap/terminfo entry for terminal type "emacs"?

  The termcap entry for terminal type "emacs" is ordinarily put in the
  TERMCAP environment variable of subshells.  It may help in certain

  Your terminal (or something between your terminal and the computer) is
  sending C-s and C-q for flow control, and Emacs is receiving these
  characters and interpreting them as commands.  (The C-s character
  normally invokes the isearch-forward command.)  For possible solutions,
  see question 122.

76:  Why can't Emacs talk to certain hosts (or certain hostnames)?

  The problem may be that Emacs is linked with a wimpier version of
  gethostbyname than the rest of the programs on the machine.  This is

  system-wide lisp/default.el file.  For information on how to debug your
  .emacs file, see question 27.

  It may be the case that you need to load some package first, or use a
  hook that will be evaluated after the package is loaded.  A common case
  of this is explained in question 118.

78:  Why does Emacs ignore my X resources (my .Xdefaults file)?

  As of version 19, Emacs searches for X resources in the files specified
  by the XFILESEARCHPATH, XUSERFILESEARCHPATH, and XAPPLRESDIR environment

  For Unix and Unix-like systems, the easiest way is often to compile it
  from scratch.  You will need:

  * Emacs sources.  See question 92 for a list of ftp sites that make them
    available.  On ftp.gnu.org, the main GNU distribution site, sources are
    available at

      ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/emacs-20.3.tar.gz

    The above will obviously change as new versions of Emacs come out.  For
    instance, when Emacs 20.4 is released, it will most probably be
    available at

      ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/emacs-20.4.tar.gz

    Again, you should use one of the mirror sites in question 92 (and
    adjust the URL accordingly) so as to reduce load on ftp.gnu.org.

  * Gzip, the GNU compression utility.  You can get gzip via anonymous ftp
    at mirrors of ftp.gnu.org sites; it should compile and install without
    much trouble on most systems.  Once you have retrieved the Emacs
    sources, you will probably be able to uncompress them with the command

      gunzip --verbose emacs-20.3.tar.gz

    changing the Emacs version (20.3), as necessary.  Once gunzip has
    finished doing its job, a file by the name of "emacs-20.3.tar" should
    be in your build directory.

  * Tar, the "tape archiving" program, which moves multiple files into and
    out of archive files, or "tarfiles."  All of the files comprising the
    Emacs source come in a single tarfile, and must be extracted using tar
    before you can build Emacs.  Typically, the extraction command would
    look like

      tar -xvvf emacs-20.3.tar

    The `x' indicates that we want to extract files from this tarfile, the
    two `v's force verbose output, and the `f' tells tar to use a disk
    file, rather than one on tape.

    If you're using GNU tar (available at mirrors of ftp.gnu.org), you can
    combine this step and the previous one by using the command

      tar -zxvvf emacs-20.3.tar.gz

    The additional `z' at the beginning of the options list tells GNU tar
    to uncompress the file with gunzip before extracting the tarfile's
    components.

  At this point, the Emacs sources (all 25+ megabytes of them) should be
  sitting in a directory called "emacs-20.3".  On most common Unix and
  Unix-like systems, you should be able to compile Emacs (with X Windows
  support) with the following commands:

    cd emacs-20.3       [ change directory to emacs-20.3 ]
    ./configure         [ configure Emacs for your particular system ]
    make                [ use Makefile to build components, then Emacs ]

  If the "make" completes successfully, the odds are fairly good that the
  build has gone well.  (See question 86 if you weren't successful.)

  To install Emacs in its default directories of /usr/local/bin (binaries),
  /usr/local/share/emacs/20.xx (Lisp code and support files), and
  /usr/local/info (Info documentation), become the super-user and type

    make install

  Note that "make install" will overwrite /usr/local/bin/emacs and any

85:  How do I update Emacs to the latest version?

  Follow the instructions in question 84.

  Emacs places nearly everything in version-specific directories (e.g.,
  /usr/local/share/emacs/20.3), so the only files that can be overwritten
  when installing a new release are /usr/local/bin/emacs and the Emacs Info
  documentation in /usr/local/info.  Back up these files before you install
  a new release, and you shouldn't have too much trouble.

86:  What should I do if I have trouble building Emacs?

  First of all, you should check to make sure that the package isn't
  already available.  For example, typing "M-x apropos RET wordstar RET"
  lists all functions and variables containing the string "wordstar".

  It is also possible that the package is on your system, but has not been
  loaded.  To see which packages are available for loading, look through
  your computer's lisp directory (see question 4).  The Lisp source to most
  most packages contains a short description of how they should be loaded,
  invoked, and configured -- so before you use or modify a Lisp package,
  see if the author has provided any hints in the source code.

  If a package does not come with Emacs, check the Lisp Code Directory,
  maintained by Dave Brennan <[e-mail]>.  The directory is contained
  in the file LCD-datafile.Z, available from the Emacs Lisp Archive (see
  question 90), and is accessed using the "lispdir" package, available from

  Once you have installed lispdir.el and LCD-datafile, you can use "M-x
  lisp-dir-apropos" to search the listing.  For example, "M-x
  lisp-dir-apropos RET ange-ftp RET" produces this output:

              GNU Emacs Lisp Code Directory Apropos -- "ange-ftp"
     "~/" refers to archive.cis.ohio-state.edu:pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/

          ange-ftp (4.18)       15-Jul-1992
               Andy Norman, <[e-mail]>
               ~/packages/ange-ftp.tar.Z
               transparent FTP Support for GNU Emacs

  If you find Emacs Lisp code that doesn't appear in the LCD, please submit
  a copy to the LCD (see question 91).

  You can access the Emacs Lisp Archive at the following sites:

    ftp://archive.cis.ohio-state.edu/pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/
    ftp://calypso-2.oit.unc.edu/pub/gnu/elisp-archive/
    ftp://faui43.informatik.uni-erlangen.de/pub/gnu/elisp-archive/
    ftp://ftp.cs.umn.edu/pub/elisp-archive/
    ftp://ftp.diku.dk/pub/elisp-archive/
    ftp://ftp.uni-mainz.de/pub/gnu/elisp-archive/

        * Any files with names ending in ".Z", ".z", or ".gz" are
          compressed, so you should use "binary" mode in FTP to retrieve
          them.  You should also use binary mode whenever you retrieve any
          files with names ending in ".elc".

91:  How do I submit code to the Emacs Lisp Archive?

  Guidelines and procedures for submission to the archive can be found in
  the file GUIDELINES in the archive directory (see question 90).  It
  covers documentation, copyrights, packaging, submission, and the Lisp
  Code Directory Record.  Anonymous FTP uploads are not permitted.
  Instead, all submissions are mailed to [e-mail].
  The lispdir.el package has a function named submit-lcd-entry which will
  help you with this.

92:  Where can I get other up-to-date GNU stuff?

  The most up-to-date official GNU software is normally kept on
  ftp.gnu.org and is available at

    ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu

  Read the files etc/DISTRIB and etc/FTP for more information.

  The following sites are all mirror images of the GNU distribution area:

         ftp://labrea.stanford.edu/pub/gnu,
         ftp://mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu/pub/gnu,
         ftp://vixen.cso.uiuc.edu/gnu,
         ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/systems/gnu

  The directory at ftp.uu.net is a mirror of ftp.gnu.org except that files
  larger than one megabyte are split into multiple parts.  If you have
  trouble transferring large files, you should try that site.  A file
  normally named "XXX" is split into files XXX-split/part[0-9][0-9], and
  there will be a file named XXX-split/README which contains the list of
  parts (especially helpful when FTP-ing by e-mail), their checksums, and
  reassembly instructions.

93:  What is the difference between Emacs and XEmacs (formerly "Lucid
     Emacs")?

  First of all, they're both GNU Emacs.  XEmacs is just as much a later
  version of GNU Emacs as the FSF-distributed version.  This FAQ refers to
  the latest version to be distributed by the FSF as "Emacs," partly
  because the XEmacs maintainers now refer to their product using the
  "XEmacs" name, and partly because there isn't any accurate way to
  differentiate between the two without getting mired in paragraphs of
  legalese and history.

  XEmacs, which began life as Lucid Emacs, is based on an early version of
  Emacs 19 and Epoch, an X-aware version of Emacs 18.

  Emacs (i.e., the version distributed by the FSF) has a larger installed
  base, while XEmacs can do some clever tricks with X Windows, such as
  putting arbitrary graphics in a buffer.  Emacs and XEmacs each come with
  Lisp packages that are lacking in the other; RMS says that the FSF would
  include more packages that come with XEmacs, but that the XEmacs
  maintainers don't always keep track of the authors of contributed code,
  which makes it impossible for the FSF to have certain legal papers
  signed.  (Without these legal papers, the FSF will not distribute Lisp
  packages with Emacs.)

  Many XEmacs features have found their way into recent versions of Emacs,
  and more features can be expected in the future, but there are still many
  differences between the two.

  The latest version of XEmacs as of this writing is 20.4; you can get it
  at

    ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/xemacs-20.4.tar.gz

  More information about XEmacs, including a list of frequently asked
  questions (FAQ), is available at

    http://www.xemacs.org/

94:  Where can I get Emacs for my PC running MS-DOS?

  A pre-built binary distribution of Emacs is available from the Simtel
  archives.  This version apparently works under MS-DOS and Windows (3.x,
  95, and NT) and supports long file names.  More information is availble
  from:

        ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/gnu/djgpp/v2gnu/emacs.README

  And the binary itself is available in the files

  Zaretskii <[e-mail]> and Darrel Hankerson
  <[e-mail]>, you will need the following:

  Compiler: djgpp version 1.12 maint 1 or later.  Djgpp 2.0 or later is
            recommended, since 1.x is being phased out.  Djgpp 2 supports
            long filenames under Windows 95.

            You can get the latest release of djgpp by retrieving
            all of the files in

              ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/gnu/djgpp

            16-bit utilities can be found in GNUish:

              ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/gnu/gnuish

  The files INSTALL and PROBLEMS in the top-level directory of the Emacs
  source contains some additional information regarding Emacs under MS-DOS.

  For a list of other MS-DOS implementations of Emacs (and Emacs
  look-alikes), consult the list of "Emacs implementations and literature,"
  available at

    ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/comp.emacs/

  Note that while many of these programs look similar to Emacs, they often
  lack certain features, such as the Emacs Lisp extension language.

95:  Where can I get Emacs for Microsoft Windows, Windows '95, or Windows
     NT?

  For information on Emacs for Windows 95 and NT, read the FAQ produced by
  Geoff Voelker <[e-mail]>, available at

    http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/voelker/ntemacs.html

  For Windows 3.1, see question 94.

96:  Where can I get Emacs for my PC running OS/2?

  Emacs 19.33 is ported for emx on OS/2 2.0 or 2.1, and is available at:

  menus, and multiple frames.  You can get it from

    ftp://next-ftp.peak.org/pub/next/apps/emacs/Emacs_for_NeXTstep.4.20a1.NIHS.b.tar.gz

100:  Where can I get Emacs for my Apple computer?

  An unofficial port of GNU Emacs 18.59 to the Macintosh is available at a
  number of ftp sites, the home being

    ftp://ftp.cs.cornell.edu/pub/parmet/Emacs-1.17.sit.bin

103: What is the IP address of XXX.YYY.ZZZ?

  If you are on a Unix machine, try using the "nslookup" command, included
  in the Berkeley BIND package.  For example, to find the IP address of
  "ftp.gnu.org", you would type

    nslookup ftp.gnu.org

  Your computer should then provide the IP address of that computer.

  If your site's nameserver is deficient, you can use IP addresses to FTP
  files.  You can get this information by

      [e-mail] (for submissions)
  NOTE: VM 6 is not guaranteed to work under Emacs 20 (although many people
  seem to use it without too much trouble).  Users of Emacs 20 might prefer
  to use VM 5.97, available from the same FTP site.

105: Supercite -- mail and news citation package within Emacs

  Author: Barry Warsaw <[e-mail]>
  Latest version: 3.1 (comes with Emacs 20)

  World Wide Web:
    http://www.python.org/emacs/supercite.tar.gz
  Mailing list:
    [e-mail] (for subscriptions)
    [e-mail] (for submissions)
  NOTE: Superyank is an old version of Supercite.

106: Calc -- poor man's Mathematica within Emacs

  Author: Dave Gillespie <[e-mail]>
  Latest version: 2.02f
  Anonymous FTP:
    ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/calc-2.02f.tar.gz
  NOTE: Unlike Wolfram Research, Dave has never threatened to sue
        anyone for having a program with a similar command language to
        Calc.  :-)

107: VIPER -- vi emulation for Emacs

  better than the one distributed with Emacs:

  Author: Aamod Sane <[e-mail]>
  Latest version: 4.3
  Anonymous FTP:
    ftp://archive.cis.ohio-state.edu/pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/modes/vip-mode.tar.Z

108: AUC TeX -- enhanced LaTeX mode with debugging facilities

  Authors: Kresten Krab Thorup <[e-mail]>
           and Per Abrahamsen <[e-mail]>

113: Mailcrypt -- PGP interface within Emacs mail and news

  Authors: Patrick J. LoPresti <[e-mail]> and 
           Jin S. Choi <[e-mail]>
  Maintainer: Len Budney <[e-mail]>
  Latest version: 3.4
  Anonymous FTP:
    http://www.nb.net/~lbudney/linux/software/mailcrypt/mailcrypt-3.5b6.tar.gz
  World Wide Web:
    http://www.nb.net/~lbudney/linux/software/mailcrypt.html

114: JDE -- Development environment for Java programming

  Author: Paul Kinnucan <[e-mail]>
  Mailing list: [e-mail]
  Latest version: 2.1.1
  World Wide Web: http://sunsite.auc.dk/jde/

115: Patch -- program to apply "diffs" for updating files

  Author: Larry Wall <[e-mail]> (with GNU modifications)
  Latest version: 2.5
  Anonymous FTP: See question 92


Changing Key Bindings and Handling Key Binding Problems

116: How do I bind keys (including function keys) to commands?

  Keys can be bound to commands either interactively or in your .emacs
  file.  To interactively bind keys for all modes, type

    M-x global-set-key RET KEY CMD RET

  following "trick": First bind the key interactively, then immediately
  type "C-x ESC ESC C-a C-k C-g".  Now, the command needed to bind the key
  is in the kill ring, and can be yanked into your .emacs file.  If the key
  binding is global, no changes to the command are required.  For example,

    (global-set-key (quote [f1]) (quote help-for-help))

  can be placed directly into the .emacs file.  If the key binding is
  local, the command is used in conjunction with the "add-hook" command.
  For example, in tex-mode, a local binding might be

    (add-hook 'tex-mode-hook
      (function (lambda ()
        (local-set-key (quote [f1]) (quote help-for-help))))

  NOTE: * Control characters in key sequences, in the form yanked from the
          kill ring are given in their graphic form -- i.e., CTRL is shown
          as `^', TAB as a set of spaces (usually 8), etc.  You may want to
          convert these into their vector or string forms.

          can be bound to a key and thus treated as a macro.  For example:

           (global-set-key [f10] [?\C-x?\e?\e?\C-a?\C-k?\C-g])  ;;  or
           (global-set-key [f10] "\C-x\e\e\C-a\C-k\C-g")

117: Why does Emacs say "Key sequence XXX uses invalid prefix characters"?

  Usually, one of two things has happened.  In one case, the control
  character in the key sequence has been misspecified (e.g. "C-f" used
  instead of "\C-f" within a Lisp expression).  In the other case, a
  "prefix key" in the keystroke sequence you were trying to bind was

  forms before attempting to bind the key sequence:

    (global-unset-key [?\e ?[])  ;;  or
    (global-unset-key "\e[")

118: Why doesn't this [terminal or window-system setup] code work in my
     .emacs file, but it works just fine after Emacs starts up?

  During startup, Emacs initializes itself according to a given code/file
  order.  If some of the code executed in your .emacs file needs to be
  postponed until the initial terminal or window-system setup code has been

             (cond ((string-match "\\`vt220" (or (getenv "TERM") ""))
                    ;; Make vt220's "Do" key behave like M-x:
                    (global-set-key [do] 'execute-extended-command))
                   ))))

  For information on what Emacs does every time it is started, see the
  lisp/startup.el file.

119: How do I use function keys under X Windows?

  With Emacs 19, functions keys under X are bound like any other key.  See
  question 116 for details.

120: How do I tell what characters or symbols my function or arrow keys
     emit?

  Type "C-h c" then the function or arrow keys.  The command will return
  either a function key symbol or character sequence (see the Emacs on-line
  documentation for an explanation).  This works for other keys as well.

121: How do I set the X key "translations" for Emacs?

  Emacs is not written using the Xt library by default, so there are no
  "translations" to be set.  (We aren't sure how to set such translations
  if you do build Emacs with Xt; please let us know if you've done this!)

     (define-key function-key-map [M-tab] [?\M-\t])

  defines the "M-TAB" key sequence.

122: How do I handle C-s and C-q being used for flow control?

  C-s and C-q are used in the XON/XOFF flow control protocol.  This messes
  things up when you're using Emacs, because Emacs binds these keys to
  commands by default.  Because Emacs won't honor them as flow control
  characters, too many of these characters are not passed on and overwhelm

    (unless they're smart enough to move it to another name).

    For further discussion of this issue, read the file PROBLEMS (in the
    top-level directory when you unpack the Emacs source).

123: How do I bind `C-s' and `C-q' (or any key) if these keys are filtered
     out?

  To bind `C-s' and `C-q', use either "enable-flow-control" or
  "enable-flow-control-on".  See question 122 for usage and implementation
  details.

  To bind other keys, use "keyboard-translate".  See question 126 for usage
  details.  To do this for an entire site, you should swap the keys in
  lisp/site-start.el.  See question 122 for an explanation of why
  lisp/default.el should not be used.

  NOTE: * If you do this for an entire site, the users will be confused by
          the disparity between what the documentation says and how Emacs
          actually behaves.

124: Why does the "Backspace" key invoke help?

  The "Backspace" key (on most keyboards) generates ASCII code 8.  `C-h'
  sends the same code.  In Emacs by default `C-h' invokes help-command.
  This is intended to be easy to remember since the first letter of "help"
  is `h'.  The easiest solution to this problem is to use `C-h' (and

  * Under X or on a dumb terminal, it is possible to swap the Backspace and
    Delete keys inside Emacs:

      (keyboard-translate ?\C-h ?\C-?)

    See question 126 for further details of "keyboard-translate".

  * Another approach is to switch key bindings and put help on "C-x h"
    instead:

      (global-set-key "\C-h" 'delete-backward-char)

    Other popular key bindings for help are M-? and "C-x ?".

    NOTE: * Don't try to bind DEL to help-command, because there are many
            modes that have local bindings of DEL that will interfere.

125: Why doesn't Emacs look at the stty settings for Backspace vs. Delete?

  Good question!

126: How do I "swap" two keys?

  In Emacs 19, you can swap two keys (or key sequences) by using the
  "keyboard-translate" function.  For example, to turn `C-h' into DEL and
  DEL to `C-h', use

  up in keymaps contain the characters that result from keyboard
  translation.

  Also see "Keyboard Translations" in the on-line manual.

127: How do I produce C-XXX with my keyboard?

  On terminals (but not under X), some common "aliases" are:

            C-2  or  C-SPC         for      C-@
            C-6                    for      C-^

  Often other aliases exist; use the "C-h c" command and try `CTRL' with
  all of the digits on your keyboard to see what gets generated.  You can
  also try the "C-h w" command if you know the name of the command.

128: What if I don't have a Meta key?

  Instead of typing "M-a", you can type "ESC a".  In fact, Emacs converts
  M-a internally into "ESC a" anyway (depending on the value of
  meta-prefix-char).  Note that you press "Meta" and `a' together, while
  you press `ESC', release it, and then press `a'.

129: What if I don't have an Escape key?

  Type `C-[' instead.  This should send ASCII code 27 just like an Escape
  key would.  `C-3' may also work on some terminal (but not under X).  For
  many terminals (notably DEC terminals) `F11' generates ESC.  If not, the
  following form can be used to bind it:

  (define-key function-key-map [f11] [?\e])  ; F11 is the documented ESC
                                             ; replacement on DEC terminals.

130: Can I make my "Compose Character" key behave like a Meta key?

  On a dumb terminal such as a VT220, no.  It is rumored that certain VT220
  clones could have their Compose key configured this way.  If you're using
  X, you might be able to do this with the "xmodmap" program.

131: How do I bind a combination of modifier key and function key?

  With Emacs 19 you can represent modified function keys in vector format
  by adding prefixes to the function key symbol.  For example (from the
  on-line documentation):

  "C-", "M-", "H-", "s-", "A-", and "S-" to the symbol name.  Here is how
  to make "Hyper-Meta-RIGHT" move forward a word:

           (global-set-key [H-M-right] 'forward-word)

  NOTE: * Not all modifiers are permitted in all situations.  Hyper, Super,
          and Alt are available only under X (provided there are such
          keys).  Non-ASCII keys and mouse events (e.g. "C-=" and
          "mouse-1") also fall under this category.

  See question 116 for general key binding instructions.

132: Why doesn't my Meta key work in an xterm window?

  Try all of these methods before asking for further help:

  * You may have big problems using "mwm" as your window manager.  {Does
    anyone know a good generic solution to allow the use of the Meta key in

      XTerm.VT100.Translations: #override \
        Meta<KeyPress>: string(0x1b) insert()

    You might have to replace "Meta" with "Alt".

133: Why doesn't my ExtendChar key work as a Meta key under HP-UX 8.0
     and 9.x?

  This is a result of an internationalization extension in X11R4 and the
  fact that HP is now using this extension.  Emacs assumes that
  XLookupString returns the same result regardless of the Meta key state

  may be undesirable if you actually intend to use them.


Using Emacs with Alternate Character Sets

134: How do I make Emacs display 8-bit characters?

  Emacs 19 has built-in support for 8-bit characters.  Here is an excerpt
  from the "European Display" page of the on-line manual:

    Some European languages use accented letters and other special symbols.
    The ISO 8859 Latin-1 character set defines character codes for many
    European languages in the range 160 to 255.

    Emacs can display those characters according to Latin-1, provided the
    terminal or font in use supports them.  The "M-x
    standard-display-european" command toggles European character display
    mode.  With a numeric argument, "M-x standard-display-european" enables
    European character display if and only if the argument is positive.

    Some operating systems let you specify the language you are using by
    setting a locale.  Emacs handles one common special case of this: if
    your locale name for character types contains the string "8859-1" or
    "88591", Emacs automatically enables European character display mode
    when it starts up.

135: How do I input 8-bit characters?

  Again, from the "European Display" page of the on-line manual:

    If you enter non-ASCII ISO Latin-1 characters often, you might find ISO
    Accents mode convenient.  When this minor mode is enabled, the
    characters ``', `'', `"', `^', `/' and `~' modify the following letter
    by adding the corresponding diacritical mark to it, if possible.  To
    enable or disable ISO Accents mode, use the command "M-x
    iso-accents-mode".  This command affects only the current buffer.

    To enter one of those six special characters, type the character,
    followed by a space.  Some of those characters have a corresponding
    "dead key" accent character in the ISO Latin-1 character set; to enter
    that character, type the corresponding ASCII character twice.  For
    example, `''' enters the Latin-1 character acute-accent (character code
    0264).

136: Where can I get an Emacs that handles kanji, Chinese, or other
     character sets?

  Emacs 20 now includes many of the features of MULE, the Multilingual
  Enhancement of Emacs.  See question 84 for information on where to find
  and download Emacs.

  The original MULE is available at

    ftp://sh.wide.ad.jp/JAPAN/mule/mule-19.33-delta.tar.gz

137: Where is an Emacs that can handle Semitic (right-to-left) alphabets?

  Emacs 20 supports Hebrew characters (ISO 8859-8), but does not yet
  support right-to-left character entry.

  Joel M. Hoffman <[e-mail]> has written a Lisp package called

  ftp sites in Israel may also have the necessary files.


Mail and News

138: How do I change the included text prefix in mail/news followups?

  If you read mail with Rmail or news with Gnus, set the variable
  mail-yank-prefix.  For VM, set vm-included-text-prefix.  For mh-e, set
  mh-ins-buf-prefix.

  For fancier control of citations, use Supercite.  See question 105.

  To prevent Emacs from including various headers of the replied-to
  message, set the value of mail-yank-ignored-headers to an appropriate
  regexp.

139: How do I save a copy of outgoing mail?

  You can either mail yourself a copy by including a "BCC:" header in the
  mail message, or store a copy of the message directly to a file by
  including an "FCC:" header.

  putting something like the following in your .emacs file:

    (setq mail-archive-file-name (expand-file-name "~/outgoing"))

  The output file will be in Unix mail format, which can be read directly
  by VM, but not always by Rmail.  See question 141.

  If you use mh-e, add an "FCC:" or "BCC:" field to your components file.

  It does not work to put "set record filename" in the .mailrc file.

140: Why doesn't Emacs expand my aliases when sending mail?

  * You must separate multiple addresses in the headers of the mail buffer
    with commas.  This is because Emacs supports RFC822 standard addresses
    like this one:

    Note that the aliases are expanded automatically only after you type
    RET or a punctuation character (e.g. `,').  You can force their
    expansion by moving point to the end of the alias and typing "C-x a e"
    (M-x expand-abbrev).

141: Why does Rmail think all my saved messages are one big message?

  A file created through the FCC: field in a message is in Unix mail
  format, not the format that Rmail uses (BABYL format).  Rmail will try to
  convert a Unix mail file into BABYL format on input, but sometimes it
  makes errors.  For guaranteed safety, you can make the saved-messages
  file be an inbox for your Rmail file by using the function
  set-rmail-inbox-list.

142: How can I sort the messages in my Rmail folder?

  In Rmail, type "C-c C-s C-h" to get a list of sorting functions and their
  key bindings.

143: Why does Rmail need to write to /usr/spool/mail?

  This is the behavior of the "movemail" program which Rmail uses.  This
  indicates that movemail is configured to use lock files.

  RMS writes:

    mail.  You simply must arrange to let movemail write them.

    Other systems use the flock system call to interlock access.  On these
    systems, you should configure movemail to use flock.

144: How do I recover my mail files after Rmail munges their format?

  If you have just done rmail-input on a file and you don't want to save it
  in Rmail's format (called BABYL), just kill the buffer (with C-x k).

  If you typed M-x rmail and it read some messages out of your inbox and

  If you want to convert an existing file from BABYL format to Unix mail
  format, use the command M-x unrmail: it will prompt you for the input and
  output file names.

145: How can I force Rmail to reply to the sender of a message, but not the
  other recipients?

  Ron Isaacson <[e-mail]> says: When you hit "r" to reply in
  Rmail, by default it CCs all of the original recipients (everyone on the
  original "To" and "CC" lists). With a prefix argument (i.e., typing "C-u"

    (add-hook 'rmail-mode-hook
      '(lambda ()
         (define-key rmail-mode-map "r" 'rmail-reply-t)
         (define-key rmail-mode-map "R" 'rmail-reply)))

146: How can I get my favorite Emacs mail package to support MIME?  

  Look at the Emacs MIME FAQ, maintained by MacDonald Hall Jackson
  <[e-mail]> at

    http://bmrc.berkeley.edu/~trey/emacs/mime.html

  Version 6.x of VM supports MIME.  See question 104.

147: How do I make Emacs automatically start my mail/news reader?

  To start Emacs in Gnus:

    emacs -f gnus

  It is probably unwise to automatically start your mail or news reader
  from your .emacs file.  This would cause problems if you needed to run
  two copies of Emacs at one time.  Also, this would make it difficult for
  you to start Emacs quickly when you needed to.

148: How do I read news under Emacs?

  Use M-x gnus.  It is documented in Info (see question 14).

149: Why doesn't Gnus work via NNTP?

  There is a bug in NNTP version 1.5.10, such that when multiple requests
  are sent to the NNTP server, the server only handles the first one before
  blocking waiting for more input which never comes.  NNTP version 1.5.11
  claims to fix this.

  (i.e., "telnet server-machine 119").  The server should give its version
  number in the welcome message.  Type "quit" to get out.

  Also see question 75 in this FAQ for some additional ideas.

150: How do I view news articles with embedded underlining (e.g.,
     ClariNews)?

  Underlining appears like this:

    _^Hu_^Hn_^Hd_^He_^Hr_^Hl_^Hi_^Hn_^Hi_^Hn_^Hg

  Per Abrahamsen <[e-mail]> suggests using the following code,
  which uses the underline face to turn such text into true underlining:

    (defun gnus-article-prepare-overstrike ()
      ;; Prepare article for overstrike commands.
      (save-excursion
        (set-buffer gnus-article-buffer)
        (let ((buffer-read-only nil))
        (goto-char (point-min))
          (while (search-forward "\b" nil t)
            (let ((next (following-char))
                  (previous (char-after (- (point) 2))))
              (cond ((eq next previous)
                     (delete-region (- (point) 2) (point))
                     (put-text-property (point) (1+ (point))
                                        'face 'bold))
                    ((eq next ?_)
                     (delete-region (1- (point)) (1+ (point)))
                     (put-text-property (1- (point)) (point)
                                        'face 'underline))
                    ((eq previous ?_)
                     (delete-region (- (point) 2) (point))
                     (put-text-property (point) (1+ (point))
                                        'face 'underline))))))))

    (add-hook 'gnus-article-prepare-hook 'gnus-article-prepare-overstrike)

  If you prefer to do away with underlining altogether, you can
  destructively remove it with M-x ununderline-region; do this
  automatically via

    (add-hook 'gnus-article-prepare-hook
      '(lambda () (ununderline-region (point-min) (point-max))))

151: How do I save all the items of a multi-part posting in Gnus?

  Use gnus-uu.  Type C-c C-v C-h in the Gnus summary buffer to see a list
  of available commands.

152: How do I make Gnus start up faster?

  From the Gnus FAQ (see question 158):

   Pranav Kumar Tiwari <[e-mail]> writes: I posted the same
   query recently and I got an answer to it. I am going to repeat the
   answer. What you need is a newer version of gnus, version 5.0.4+. I am
   using 5.0.12 and it works fine with me with the following settings:

    (setq gnus-check-new-newsgroups nil
          gnus-read-active-file 'some
          gnus-nov-is-evil nil
          gnus-select-method '(nntp gnus-nntp-server))

153: How do I catch up all newsgroups in Gnus?

  In the "*Newsgroup*" buffer, type the following magical incantation:

    M-< C-x ( c y C-x ) M-0 C-x e

  Leave off the "M-<" if you only want to catch up from point to the end of
  the "*Newsgroup" buffer.

154: Why can't I kill in Gnus based on the Newsgroups/Keywords/Control
     headers?

  Gnus will complain that the "Newsgroups:", "Keywords:", and "Control:"
  headers are "Unknown header" fields.

  If you really want to kill on one of these headers, you can do it like
  this:

    (gnus-kill nil "^Newsgroups: .*\\(bad\\.group\\|worse\\.group\\)")

155: How do I get rid of flashing messages in Gnus for slow connections?

  Set nntp-debug-read to nil.

156: Why is catch up slow in Gnus?

  Because Gnus is marking crosspostings read.  You can control this with
  the variable gnus-use-cross-reference.

157: Why does Gnus hang for a long time when posting?

  David Lawrence <[e-mail]> explains:

    The problem is almost always interaction between NNTP and C News.  NNTP
    POST asks C News's inews to not background itself but rather hang

    rather use newsspool.  This loses some error-catching functionality,
    but is for the most part safe as inews will detect a lot of the errors
    on its own.  The C News folks have sped up inews, too, so speed should
    look better to most folks as that update propagates around.

158: Where can I find out more about Gnus?

  Look for the Gnus FAQ, available at

    http://www.miranova.com/~steve/gnus-faq.html

------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 1994-1998 Reuven M. Lerner
Copyright 1992-1993 Steven Byrnes
Copyright 1990-1992 Joseph Brian Wells

This list of frequently asked questions about GNU Emacs with answers