Next: Explicit Fill Commands, Up: Filling Text   [Contents][Index]

27.6.1 Auto Fill Mode ¶

Auto Fill mode is a buffer-local minor mode (see Minor Modes) in which lines are broken automatically when the line becomes too wide and you type SPC or RET.

M-x auto-fill-mode

Enable or disable Auto Fill mode.

SPC

RET

In Auto Fill mode, break lines when appropriate.

The mode command M-x auto-fill-mode toggles Auto Fill mode in the current buffer. Like any other minor mode, with a positive numeric argument, it enables Auto Fill mode, and with a negative argument it disables it. To enable Auto Fill mode automatically in certain major modes, add auto-fill-mode to the mode hooks (see Major Modes). When Auto Fill mode is enabled, the mode indicator ‘Fill’ appears in the mode line (see The Mode Line).

Auto Fill mode breaks lines automatically at the appropriate places whenever lines get longer than the desired width. This line breaking occurs only when you type SPC or RET. If you wish to insert a space or newline without permitting line-breaking, type C-q SPC or C-q C-j respectively. Also, C-o inserts a newline without line breaking.

The place where Auto Fill breaks a line depends on the line’s characters. For characters from ASCII, Latin, and most other scripts Emacs breaks a line on space characters, to keep the words intact. But for CJK scripts, a line can be broken between any two characters. (If you load the kinsoku library, Emacs will avoid breaking a line between certain pairs of CJK characters, where special rules prohibit that.)

When Auto Fill mode breaks a line, it tries to obey the adaptive fill prefix: if a fill prefix can be deduced from the first and/or second line of the current paragraph, it is inserted into the new line (see Adaptive Filling). Otherwise the new line is indented, as though you had typed TAB on it (see Indentation). In a programming language mode, if a line is broken in the middle of a comment, the comment is split by inserting new comment delimiters as appropriate.

Auto Fill mode does not refill entire paragraphs; it breaks lines but does not merge lines. Therefore, editing in the middle of a paragraph can result in a paragraph that is not correctly filled. To fill it, call the explicit fill commands (see Explicit Fill Commands).

A similar feature that wraps long lines automatically at display time is Visual Line Mode (see Visual Line Mode).

Next: The Fill Prefix, Previous: Auto Fill Mode, Up: Filling Text   [Contents][Index]

27.6.2 Explicit Fill Commands ¶

M-q

Fill current paragraph (fill-paragraph).

C-x f

Set the fill column (set-fill-column).

M-x fill-region

Fill each paragraph in the region.

M-x fill-region-as-paragraph

Fill the region, considering it as one paragraph.

M-x unfill-paragraph

Unfill current paragraph.

M-x center-line

Center a line.

The command M-q (fill-paragraph) fills the current paragraph. It redistributes the line breaks within the paragraph, and deletes any excess space and tab characters occurring within the paragraph, in such a way that the lines end up fitting within a certain maximum width. Like Auto Fill mode, this and other filling commands usually break lines at space characters, but for CJK characters these commands can break a line between almost any two characters, and they can also obey the kinsoku rules. See Auto Fill Mode.

Normally, M-q acts on the paragraph where point is, but if point is between paragraphs, it acts on the paragraph after point. If the region is active, it acts instead on the text in the region. You can also call M-x fill-region to specifically fill the text in the region.

M-q and fill-region use the usual Emacs criteria for finding paragraph boundaries (see Paragraphs). For more control, you can use M-x fill-region-as-paragraph, which refills everything between point and mark as a single paragraph. The behavior of this command is controlled by the variable fill-region-as-paragraph-function. By default, it deletes any blank lines within the region, so separate blocks of text end up combined into one block.

A numeric argument to M-q tells it to justify the text as well as filling it. This means that extra spaces are inserted to make the right margin line up exactly at the fill column. To remove the extra spaces, use M-q with no argument. (Likewise for fill-region.)

The maximum line width for filling is specified by the buffer-local variable fill-column. The default value (see Local Variables) is 70. The easiest way to set fill-column in the current buffer is to use the command C-x f (set-fill-column). With a numeric argument, it uses that as the new fill column. With just C-u as argument, it sets fill-column to the current horizontal position of point. Note that, by its very nature, fill-column is measured in column units; the actual position of that column on a graphical display depends on the font being used. In particular, using variable-pitch fonts will cause the fill-column occupy different horizontal positions on display in different lines.

The command M-x unfill-paragraph is the inverse of M-q. It joins up the lines of the current paragraph. Using this command is like starting on the last line of the paragraph and repeatedly typing M-^ (see Indentation Commands) until all the lines are joined. With a numeric prefix argument, apply the operation to that many paragraphs. For example, with a numeric prefix argument of 2, join all the lines in this paragraph and all the lines in the next paragraph, but preserve the separation of the two paragraphs. When there is no prefix argument, it acts on an active region just like M-q.

The command M-x center-line centers the current line within the current fill column. With an argument n, it centers n lines individually and moves past them. This binding is made by Text mode and is available only in that and related modes (see Text Mode).

By default, Emacs considers a period followed by two spaces or by a newline as the end of a sentence; a period followed by just one space indicates an abbreviation, not the end of a sentence. Accordingly, the fill commands will not break a line after a period followed by just one space. If you set the variable sentence-end-double-space to nil, the fill commands will break a line after a period followed by one space, and put just one space after each period. See Sentences, for other effects and possible drawbacks of this.

If the variable colon-double-space is non-nil, the fill commands put two spaces after a colon.

To specify additional conditions where line-breaking is not allowed, customize the abnormal hook variable fill-nobreak-predicate (see Hooks). Each function in this hook is called with no arguments, with point positioned where Emacs is considering breaking a line. If a function returns a non-nil value, Emacs will not break the line there. Functions you can use there include: fill-single-word-nobreak-p (don’t break after the first word of a sentence or before the last); fill-single-char-nobreak-p (don’t break after a one-letter word preceded by a whitespace character); fill-french-nobreak-p (don’t break after ‘(’ or before ‘)’, ‘:’ or ‘?’); and fill-polish-nobreak-p (don’t break after a one letter word, even if preceded by a non-whitespace character).

Emacs can display an indicator in the fill-column position using the Display fill column indicator mode (see display-fill-column-indicator).

Next: Adaptive Filling, Previous: Explicit Fill Commands, Up: Filling Text   [Contents][Index]

27.6.3 The Fill Prefix ¶

The fill prefix feature allows paragraphs to be filled so that each line starts with a special string of characters (such as a sequence of spaces, giving an indented paragraph). You can specify a fill prefix explicitly; otherwise, Emacs tries to deduce one automatically (see Adaptive Filling).

C-x .

Set the fill prefix (set-fill-prefix).

M-q

Fill a paragraph using current fill prefix (fill-paragraph).

M-x fill-individual-paragraphs

Fill the region, considering each change of indentation as starting a new paragraph.

M-x fill-nonuniform-paragraphs

Fill the region, considering only paragraph-separator lines as starting a new paragraph.

To specify a fill prefix for the current buffer, move to a line that starts with the desired prefix, put point at the end of the prefix, and type C-x . (set-fill-prefix). (That’s a period after the C-x.) To turn off the fill prefix, either type C-u C-x . or specify an empty prefix: type C-x . with point at the beginning of a line.

When a fill prefix is in effect, the fill commands remove the fill prefix from each line of the paragraph before filling, and insert it on each line after filling. (The beginning of the first line of the paragraph is left unchanged, since often that is intentionally different.) Auto Fill mode also inserts the fill prefix automatically when it makes a new line (see Auto Fill Mode). The C-o command inserts the fill prefix on new lines it creates, when you use it at the beginning of a line (see Blank Lines). Conversely, the command M-^ deletes the prefix (if it occurs) after the newline that it deletes (see Indentation).

For example, if fill-column is 40 and you set the fill prefix to ‘;; ’, then M-q in the following text

;; This is an
;; example of a paragraph
;; inside a Lisp-style comment.

produces this:

;; This is an example of a paragraph
;; inside a Lisp-style comment.

Lines that do not start with the fill prefix are considered to start paragraphs, both in M-q and the paragraph commands; this gives good results for paragraphs with hanging indentation (every line indented except the first one). Lines which are blank or indented once the prefix is removed also separate or start paragraphs; this is what you want if you are writing multi-paragraph comments with a comment delimiter on each line.

You can use M-x fill-individual-paragraphs to set the fill prefix for each paragraph automatically. This command divides the region into paragraphs, treating every change in the amount of indentation as the start of a new paragraph, and fills each of these paragraphs. Thus, all the lines in one paragraph have the same amount of indentation. That indentation serves as the fill prefix for that paragraph.

M-x fill-nonuniform-paragraphs is a similar command that divides the region into paragraphs in a different way. It considers only paragraph-separating lines (as defined by paragraph-separate) as starting a new paragraph. Since this means that the lines of one paragraph may have different amounts of indentation, the fill prefix used is the smallest amount of indentation of any of the lines of the paragraph. This gives good results with styles that indent a paragraph’s first line more or less that the rest of the paragraph.

The fill prefix is stored in the variable fill-prefix. Its value is a string, or nil when there is no fill prefix. This is a per-buffer variable; altering the variable affects only the current buffer, but there is a default value which you can change as well. See Local Variables.

The indentation text property provides another way to control the amount of indentation paragraphs receive. See Indentation in Enriched Text.

Previous: The Fill Prefix, Up: Filling Text   [Contents][Index]

27.6.4 Adaptive Filling ¶

The fill commands can deduce the proper fill prefix for a paragraph automatically in certain cases: either whitespace or certain punctuation characters at the beginning of a line are propagated to all lines of the paragraph.

If the paragraph has two or more lines, the fill prefix is taken from the paragraph’s second line, but only if it appears on the first line as well.

If a paragraph has just one line, fill commands may take a prefix from that line. The decision is complicated because there are three reasonable things to do in such a case:

• Use the first line’s prefix on all the lines of the paragraph.
• Indent subsequent lines with whitespace, so that they line up under the text that follows the prefix on the first line, but don’t actually copy the prefix from the first line.
• Don’t do anything special with the second and following lines.

All three of these styles of formatting are commonly used. So the fill commands try to determine what you would like, based on the prefix that appears and on the major mode. Here is how.

If the prefix found on the first line matches adaptive-fill-first-line-regexp, or if it appears to be a comment-starting sequence (this depends on the major mode), then the prefix found is used for filling the paragraph, provided it would not act as a paragraph starter on subsequent lines.

Otherwise, the prefix found is converted to an equivalent number of spaces, and those spaces are used as the fill prefix for the rest of the lines, provided they would not act as a paragraph starter on subsequent lines.

In Text mode, and other modes where only blank lines and page delimiters separate paragraphs, the prefix chosen by adaptive filling never acts as a paragraph starter, so it can always be used for filling.

The variable adaptive-fill-regexp determines what kinds of line beginnings can serve as a fill prefix: any characters at the start of the line that match this regular expression are used. If you set the variable adaptive-fill-mode to nil, the fill prefix is never chosen automatically.

You can specify more complex ways of choosing a fill prefix automatically by setting the variable adaptive-fill-function to a function. This function is called with point after the left margin of a line, and it should return the appropriate fill prefix based on that line. If it returns nil, adaptive-fill-regexp gets a chance to find a prefix.

Next: Format of Outlines, Up: Outline Mode   [Contents][Index]

27.9.1 Outline Minor Mode ¶

Outline minor mode is a buffer-local minor mode which provides the same commands as the major mode, Outline mode, but can be used in conjunction with other major modes. You can type M-x outline-minor-mode to toggle Outline minor mode in the current buffer, or use a file-local variable setting to enable it in a specific file (see Local Variables in Files).

The major mode, Outline mode, provides special key bindings on the C-c prefix. Outline minor mode provides similar bindings with C-c @ as the prefix; this is to reduce the conflicts with the major mode’s special commands. (The variable outline-minor-mode-prefix controls the prefix used.)

If outline-minor-mode-use-buttons is non-nil, Outline minor mode will use buttons at the beginning of the heading lines, in addition to ellipsis, to show that a section is hidden. Clicking the mouse on the button toggles display of the section. If the value of this variable is insert, the buttons are inserted directly into the buffer text, so RET on the button will also toggle display of the section, like a mouse click does. Using the value insert is not recommended in editable buffers because it modifies them. If the value is in-margins, Outline minor mode will use the window margins to indicate that a section is hidden. The buttons are customizable as icons (see Icons).

If the outline-minor-mode-cycle user option is non-nil, the TAB and S-TAB keys that cycle the visibility are enabled on the outline heading lines (see outline-cycle). TAB cycles hiding, showing the sub-heading, and showing all for the current section. S-TAB does the same for the entire buffer.

Next: Outline Motion Commands, Previous: Outline Minor Mode, Up: Outline Mode   [Contents][Index]

27.9.2 Format of Outlines ¶

Outline mode assumes that the lines in the buffer are of two types: heading lines and body lines. A heading line represents a topic in the outline. Heading lines start with one or more asterisk (‘*’) characters; the number of asterisks determines the depth of the heading in the outline structure. Thus, a heading line with one ‘*’ is a major topic; all the heading lines with two ‘*’s between it and the next one-‘*’ heading are its subtopics; and so on. Any line that is not a heading line is a body line. Body lines belong with the preceding heading line. Here is an example:

* Food
This is the body,
which says something about the topic of food.

** Delicious Food
This is the body of the second-level header.

** Distasteful Food
This could have
a body too, with
several lines.

*** Dormitory Food

* Shelter
Another first-level topic with its header line.

A heading line together with all following body lines is called collectively an entry. A heading line together with all following deeper heading lines and their body lines is called a subtree.

You can customize the criterion for distinguishing heading lines by setting the variable outline-regexp. (The recommended ways to do this are in a major mode function or with a file local variable.) Any line whose beginning has a match for this regexp is considered a heading line. Matches that start within a line (not at the left margin) do not count.

The length of the matching text determines the level of the heading; longer matches make a more deeply nested level. Thus, for example, if a text formatter has commands ‘@chapter’, ‘@section’ and ‘@subsection’ to divide the document into chapters and sections, you could make those lines count as heading lines by setting outline-regexp to ‘"@chap\\|@\\(sub\\)*section"’. Note the trick: the two words ‘chapter’ and ‘section’ are equally long, but by defining the regexp to match only ‘chap’ we ensure that the length of the text matched on a chapter heading is shorter, so that Outline mode will know that sections are contained in chapters. This works as long as no other command starts with ‘@chap’.

Instead of setting the variable outline-regexp, you can set the variable outline-search-function to a function that matches the current heading and searches for the next one (see Outline Minor Mode in the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual).

You can explicitly specify a rule for calculating the level of a heading line by setting the variable outline-level. The value of outline-level should be a function that takes no arguments and returns the level of the current heading. The recommended ways to set this variable are in a major mode command or with a file local variable.

Next: Outline Visibility Commands, Previous: Format of Outlines, Up: Outline Mode   [Contents][Index]

27.9.3 Outline Motion Commands ¶

Outline mode provides special motion commands that move backward and forward to heading lines.

C-c C-n ¶

Move point to the next visible heading line (outline-next-visible-heading).

C-c C-p ¶

Move point to the previous visible heading line (outline-previous-visible-heading).

C-c C-f ¶

Move point to the next visible heading line at the same level as the one point is on (outline-forward-same-level).

C-c C-b ¶

Move point to the previous visible heading line at the same level (outline-backward-same-level).

C-c C-u ¶

Move point up to a lower-level (more inclusive) visible heading line (outline-up-heading).

All of the above commands accept numeric arguments as repeat counts. For example, C-c C-f, when given an argument, moves forward that many visible heading lines on the same level, and C-c C-u with an argument moves out of that many nested levels.

Next: Viewing One Outline in Multiple Views, Previous: Outline Motion Commands, Up: Outline Mode   [Contents][Index]

27.9.4 Outline Visibility Commands ¶

Outline mode provides several commands for temporarily hiding or revealing parts of the buffer, based on the outline structure. These commands are not undoable; their effects are simply not recorded by the undo mechanism, so you can undo right past them (see Undo).

Many of these commands act on the current heading line. If point is on a heading line, that is the current heading line; if point is on a body line, the current heading line is the nearest preceding header line.

C-c C-c

Make the current heading line’s body invisible (outline-hide-entry).

C-c C-e

Make the current heading line’s body visible (outline-show-entry).

C-c C-d

Make everything under the current heading invisible, not including the heading itself (outline-hide-subtree).

C-c C-s

Make everything under the current heading visible, including body, subheadings, and their bodies (outline-show-subtree).

C-c C-l

Make the body of the current heading line, and of all its subheadings, invisible (outline-hide-leaves).

C-c C-k

Make all subheadings of the current heading line, at all levels, visible (outline-show-branches).

C-c C-i

Make immediate subheadings (one level down) of the current heading line visible (outline-show-children).

C-c C-t

Make all body lines in the buffer invisible (outline-hide-body).

C-c C-a

Make all lines in the buffer visible (outline-show-all).

C-c C-q

Hide everything except the top n levels of heading lines (outline-hide-sublevels).

C-c C-o

Hide everything except for the heading or body that point is in, plus the headings leading up from there to the top level of the outline (outline-hide-other).

C-c / h regexp RET

Hide bodies of headings that match regexp (outline-hide-by-heading-regexp).

C-c / s regexp RET

Show bodies of headings that match regexp (outline-show-by-heading-regexp).

The simplest of these commands are C-c C-c (outline-hide-entry), which hides the body lines directly following the current heading line, and C-c C-e (outline-show-entry), which reveals them. Subheadings and their bodies are not affected.

The commands C-c C-d (outline-hide-subtree) and C-c C-s (outline-show-subtree) are more powerful. They apply to the current heading line’s subtree: its body, all of its subheadings, both direct and indirect, and all of their bodies.

The command C-c C-l (outline-hide-leaves) hides the body of the current heading line as well as all the bodies in its subtree; the subheadings themselves are left visible. The command C-c C-k (outline-show-branches) reveals the subheadings, if they had previously been hidden (e.g., by C-c C-d). The command C-c C-i (outline-show-children) is a weaker version of this; it reveals just the direct subheadings, i.e., those one level down.

The command C-c C-o (outline-hide-other) hides everything except the entry that point is in, plus its parents (the headers leading up from there to top level in the outline) and the top level headings. It also reveals body lines preceding the first heading in the buffer.

The command C-c / h (outline-hide-by-heading-regexp) prompts for a regular expression, and hides all the body lines of headings which match the regular expression. The command C-c / s likewise prompts for a regular expression, and reveals the bodies of matching headings.

The remaining commands affect the whole buffer. C-c C-t (outline-hide-body) makes all body lines invisible, so that you see just the outline structure (as a special exception, it will not hide lines at the top of the file, preceding the first header line, even though these are technically body lines). C-c C-a (outline-show-all) makes all lines visible. C-c C-q (outline-hide-sublevels) hides all but the top level headings at and above the level of the current heading line (defaulting to 1 if point is not on a heading); with a numeric argument n, it hides everything except the top n levels of heading lines. Note that it completely reveals all the n top levels and the body lines before the first heading.

Outline also provides two convenience commands to cycle the visibility of each section and the whole buffer. Typing TAB (outline-cycle) on a heading cycles the current section between “hide all”, “subheadings”, and “show all” states. Typing S-TAB (outline-cycle-buffer) cycles the whole buffer between “only top-level headings”, “all headings and subheadings”, and “show all” states.

When incremental search finds text that is hidden by Outline mode, it makes that part of the buffer visible. If you exit the search at that position, the text remains visible. To toggle whether or not an active incremental search can match hidden text, type M-s i. To change the default for future searches, customize the option search-invisible. (This option also affects how query-replace and related functions treat hidden text, see Query Replace.) You can also automatically make text visible as you navigate in it by using Reveal mode (M-x reveal-mode), a buffer-local minor mode.

The outline-default-state variable controls what headings will be visible after Outline mode is turned on. If non-nil, some headings are initially outlined. If equal to a number, show only headings up to and including the corresponding level. If equal to outline-show-all, all text of buffer is shown. If equal to outline-show-only-headings, show only headings, whatever their level is. If equal to a lambda function or function name, this function is expected to toggle headings visibility, and will be called without arguments after the mode is enabled.

Next: Folding Editing, Previous: Outline Visibility Commands, Up: Outline Mode   [Contents][Index]

27.9.5 Viewing One Outline in Multiple Views ¶

You can display two views of a single outline at the same time, in different windows. To do this, you must create an indirect buffer using M-x make-indirect-buffer. The first argument of this command is the existing outline buffer name, and its second argument is the name to use for the new indirect buffer. See Indirect Buffers.

Once the indirect buffer exists, you can display it in a window in the normal fashion, with C-x 4 b or other Emacs commands. The Outline mode commands to show and hide parts of the text operate on each buffer independently; as a result, each buffer can have its own view. If you want more than two views on the same outline, create additional indirect buffers.

Previous: Viewing One Outline in Multiple Views, Up: Outline Mode   [Contents][Index]

27.9.6 Folding Editing ¶

The Foldout package extends Outline mode and Outline minor mode with folding commands. The idea of folding is that you zoom in on a nested portion of the outline, while hiding its relatives at higher levels.

Consider an Outline mode buffer with all the text and subheadings under level-1 headings hidden. To look at what is hidden under one of these headings, you could use C-c C-e (M-x outline-show-entry) to expose the body, or C-c C-i to expose the child (level-2) headings.

With Foldout, you use C-c C-z (M-x foldout-zoom-subtree). This exposes the body and child subheadings, and narrows the buffer so that only the level-1 heading, the body and the level-2 headings are visible. Now to look under one of the level-2 headings, position the cursor on it and use C-c C-z again. This exposes the level-2 body and its level-3 child subheadings and narrows the buffer again. Zooming in on successive subheadings can be done as much as you like. A string in the mode line shows how deep you’ve gone.

When zooming in on a heading, to see only the child subheadings specify a numeric argument: C-u C-c C-z. The number of levels of children can be specified too (compare M-x outline-show-children), e.g., M-2 C-c C-z exposes two levels of child subheadings. Alternatively, the body can be specified with a negative argument: M-- C-c C-z. The whole subtree can be expanded, similarly to C-c C-s (M-x outline-show-subtree), by specifying a zero argument: M-0 C-c C-z.

While you’re zoomed in, you can still use Outline mode’s exposure and hiding functions without disturbing Foldout. Also, since the buffer is narrowed, global editing actions will only affect text under the zoomed-in heading. This is useful for restricting changes to a particular chapter or section of your document.

To unzoom (exit) a fold, use C-c C-x (M-x foldout-exit-fold). This hides all the text and subheadings under the top-level heading and returns you to the previous view of the buffer. Specifying a numeric argument exits that many levels of folds. Specifying a zero argument exits all folds. Specifying a negative argument (so that the exited fold remains visible) preserves the position of point and window view.

To cancel the narrowing of a fold without hiding the text and subheadings, specify a negative argument. For example, M--2 C-c C-x exits two folds and leaves the text and subheadings exposed.

While working within a fold, you may wish to use Emacs’s standard narrowing commands such as C-x n n (narrow-to-region) or C-x n d (narrow-to-defun). After using these commands, foldout-widen-to-current-fold) allows you to widen back to the current fold level, rather than the entire buffer. If you’re not currently in a fold, it behaves like widen.

Foldout mode also provides mouse commands for entering and exiting folds, and for showing and hiding text:

C-M-mouse-1 zooms in on the heading clicked on

• single click: expose body.
• double click: expose subheadings.
• triple click: expose body and subheadings.
• quad click: expose entire subtree.

C-M-mouse-2 exposes text under the heading clicked on

• single click: expose body.
• double click: expose subheadings.
• triple click: expose body and subheadings.
• quad click: expose entire subtree.

C-M-mouse-3 hides text under the heading clicked on or exits fold

• single click: hide subtree.
• double click: exit fold and hide text.
• triple click: exit fold without hiding text.
• quad click: exit all folds and hide text.

You can specify different modifier keys (instead of Ctrl-Meta-) by setting foldout-mouse-modifiers; but if you have already loaded the foldout.el library, you must reload it in order for this to take effect.

To use the Foldout package, you can type M-x load-library RET foldout RET; or you can arrange for to do that automatically by putting the following in your init file:

(with-eval-after-load "outline"
  (require 'foldout))

Next: Org as an authoring system, Up: Org Mode   [Contents][Index]

27.10.1 Org as an organizer ¶

You can tag an Org entry as a TODO item by typing C-c C-t (org-todo) anywhere in the entry. This adds the keyword ‘TODO’ to the heading line. Typing C-c C-t again switches the keyword to ‘DONE’; another C-c C-t removes the keyword entirely, and so forth. You can customize the keywords used by C-c C-t via the variable org-todo-keywords.

Apart from marking an entry as TODO, you can attach a date to it, by typing C-c C-s (org-schedule) in the entry. This prompts for a date by popping up the Emacs Calendar (see The Calendar and the Diary), and then adds the tag ‘SCHEDULED’, together with the selected date, beneath the heading line. The command C-c C-d (org-deadline) has the same effect, except that it uses the tag DEADLINE.

Once you have some TODO items planned in an Org file, you can add that file to the list of agenda files by typing C-c [ (org-agenda-file-to-front). Org mode is designed to let you easily maintain multiple agenda files, e.g., for organizing different aspects of your life. The list of agenda files is stored in the variable org-agenda-files.

To view items coming from your agenda files, type M-x org-agenda. This command prompts for what you want to see: a list of things to do this week, a list of TODO items with specific keywords, etc. See Agenda Views in The Org Manual, for details.

Previous: Org as an organizer, Up: Org Mode   [Contents][Index]

27.10.2 Org as an authoring system ¶

You may want to format your Org notes nicely and to prepare them for export and publication. To export the current buffer, type C-c C-e (org-export-dispatch) anywhere in an Org buffer. This command prompts for an export format; currently supported formats include HTML, LaTeX, Texinfo, OpenDocument (.odt), iCalendar, Markdown, man-page, and PDF. Some formats, such as PDF, require certain system tools to be installed.

To export several files at once to a specific directory, either locally or over the network, you must define a list of projects through the variable org-publish-project-alist. See its documentation for details.

Org supports a simple markup scheme for applying text formatting to exported documents:

- This text is /emphasized/
- This text is *in bold*
- This text is _underlined_
- This text uses =a teletype font=

#+begin_quote
``This is a quote.''
#+end_quote

#+begin_example
This is an example.
#+end_example

For further details, Exporting in The Org Manual, and Publishing in The Org Manual.

Next: LaTeX Editing Commands, Up: TeX Mode   [Contents][Index]

27.11.1 TeX Editing Commands ¶

"

Insert, according to context, either ‘``’ or ‘"’ or ‘''’ (tex-insert-quote).

C-j

Insert a paragraph break (two newlines) and check the previous paragraph for unbalanced braces or dollar signs (tex-terminate-paragraph).

M-x tex-validate-region

Check each paragraph in the region for unbalanced braces or dollar signs.

C-c {

Insert ‘{}’ and position point between them (tex-insert-braces).

C-c }

Move forward past the next unmatched close brace (up-list).

In TeX, the character ‘"’ is not normally used; instead, quotations begin with ‘``’ and end with ‘''’. TeX mode therefore binds the " key to the tex-insert-quote command. This inserts ‘``’ after whitespace or an open brace, ‘"’ after a backslash, and ‘''’ after any other character.

As a special exception, if you type " when the text before point is either ‘``’ or ‘''’, Emacs replaces that preceding text with a single ‘"’ character. You can therefore type "" to insert ‘"’, should you ever need to do so. (You can also use C-q " to insert this character.)

In TeX mode, ‘$’ has a special syntax code which attempts to understand the way TeX math mode delimiters match. When you insert a ‘$’ that is meant to exit math mode, the position of the matching ‘$’ that entered math mode is displayed for a second. This is the same feature that displays the open brace that matches a close brace that is inserted. However, there is no way to tell whether a ‘$’ enters math mode or leaves it; so when you insert a ‘$’ that enters math mode, the previous ‘$’ position is shown as if it were a match, even though they are actually unrelated.

TeX uses braces as delimiters that must match. Some users prefer to keep braces balanced at all times, rather than inserting them singly. Use C-c { (tex-insert-braces) to insert a pair of braces. It leaves point between the two braces so you can insert the text that belongs inside. Afterward, use the command C-c } (up-list) to move forward past the close brace. You can also invoke C-c { after marking some text: then the command encloses the marked text in braces.

There are two commands for checking the matching of braces. C-j (tex-terminate-paragraph) checks the paragraph before point, and inserts two newlines to start a new paragraph. It outputs a message in the echo area if any mismatch is found. M-x tex-validate-region checks a region, paragraph by paragraph. The errors are listed in an *Occur* buffer; you can use the usual Occur mode commands in that buffer, such as C-c C-c, to visit a particular mismatch (see Other Search-and-Loop Commands).

Note that Emacs commands count square brackets and parentheses in TeX mode, not just braces. This is not strictly correct for the purpose of checking TeX syntax. However, parentheses and square brackets are likely to be used in text as matching delimiters, and it is useful for the various motion commands and automatic match display to work with them.

Next: TeX Printing Commands, Previous: TeX Editing Commands, Up: TeX Mode   [Contents][Index]

27.11.2 LaTeX Editing Commands ¶

LaTeX mode provides a few extra features not applicable to plain TeX:

C-c C-o

Insert ‘\begin’ and ‘\end’ for LaTeX block and position point on a line between them (latex-insert-block).

C-c C-e

Close the innermost LaTeX block not yet closed (latex-close-block).

In LaTeX input, ‘\begin’ and ‘\end’ tags are used to group blocks of text. To insert a block, type C-c C-o (latex-insert-block). This prompts for a block type, and inserts the appropriate matching ‘\begin’ and ‘\end’ tags, leaving a blank line between the two and moving point there.

When entering the block type argument to C-c C-o, you can use the usual completion commands (see Completion). The default completion list contains the standard LaTeX block types. If you want additional block types for completion, customize the list variable latex-block-names.

In LaTeX input, ‘\begin’ and ‘\end’ tags must balance. You can use C-c C-e (latex-close-block) to insert an ‘\end’ tag which matches the last unmatched ‘\begin’. It also indents the ‘\end’ to match the corresponding ‘\begin’, and inserts a newline after the ‘\end’ tag if point is at the beginning of a line. The minor mode latex-electric-env-pair-mode automatically inserts an ‘\end’ or ‘\begin’ tag for you when you type the corresponding one.

Next: TeX Mode Miscellany, Previous: LaTeX Editing Commands, Up: TeX Mode   [Contents][Index]

27.11.3 TeX Printing Commands ¶

You can invoke TeX as a subprocess of Emacs, supplying either the entire contents of the buffer or just part of it (e.g., one chapter of a larger document).

C-c C-b

Invoke TeX on the entire current buffer (tex-buffer).

C-c C-r

Invoke TeX on the current region, together with the buffer’s header (tex-region).

C-c C-f

Invoke TeX on the current file (tex-file).

C-c C-v

Preview the output from the last C-c C-b, C-c C-r, or C-c C-f command (tex-view).

C-c C-p

Print the output from the last C-c C-b, C-c C-r, or C-c C-f command (tex-print).

C-c TAB

Invoke BibTeX on the current file (tex-bibtex-file).

C-c C-l

Recenter the window showing output from TeX so that the last line can be seen (tex-recenter-output-buffer).

C-c C-k

Kill the TeX subprocess (tex-kill-job).

C-c C-c

Invoke some other compilation command on the entire current buffer (tex-compile).

To pass the current buffer through TeX, type C-c C-b (tex-buffer). The formatted output goes in a temporary file, normally a .dvi file. Afterwards, you can type C-c C-v (tex-view) to launch an external program, such as xdvi, to view this output file. You can also type C-c C-p (tex-print) to print a hardcopy of the output file.

By default, C-c C-b runs TeX in the current directory. The output of TeX is also created in this directory. To run TeX in a different directory, change the variable tex-directory to the desired directory. If your environment variable TEXINPUTS contains relative names, or if your files contain ‘\input’ commands with relative file names, then tex-directory must be "." or you will get the wrong results. Otherwise, it is safe to specify some other directory, such as "/tmp".

The buffer’s TeX variant determines what shell command C-c C-b actually runs. In Plain TeX mode, it is specified by the variable tex-run-command, which defaults to "tex". In LaTeX mode, it is specified by latex-run-command, which defaults to "latex". The shell command that C-c C-v runs to view the .dvi output is determined by the variable tex-dvi-view-command, regardless of the TeX variant. The shell command that C-c C-p runs to print the output is determined by the variable tex-dvi-print-command. The variable tex-print-file-extension can be set to the required file extension for viewing and printing TeX-compiled files. For example, you can set it to .pdf, and update tex-dvi-view-command and tex-dvi-print-command accordingly, as well as latex-run-command or tex-run-command.

Normally, Emacs automatically appends the output file name to the shell command strings described in the preceding paragraph. For example, if tex-dvi-view-command is "xdvi", C-c C-v runs xdvi output-file-name. In some cases, however, the file name needs to be embedded in the command, e.g., if you need to provide the file name as an argument to one command whose output is piped to another. You can specify where to put the file name with ‘*’ in the command string. For example,

(setq tex-dvi-print-command "dvips -f * | lpr")

The terminal output from TeX, including any error messages, appears in a buffer called *tex-shell*. If TeX gets an error, you can switch to this buffer and feed it input (this works as in Shell mode; see Interactive Subshell). Without switching to this buffer you can scroll it so that its last line is visible by typing C-c C-l.

Type C-c C-k (tex-kill-job) to kill the TeX process if you see that its output is no longer useful. Using C-c C-b or C-c C-r also kills any TeX process still running.

You can also pass an arbitrary region through TeX by typing C-c C-r (tex-region). This is tricky, however, because most files of TeX input contain commands at the beginning to set parameters and define macros, without which no later part of the file will format correctly. To solve this problem, C-c C-r allows you to designate a part of the file as containing essential commands; it is included before the specified region as part of the input to TeX. The designated part of the file is called the header.

To indicate the bounds of the header in Plain TeX mode, you insert two special strings in the file. Insert ‘%**start of header’ before the header, and ‘%**end of header’ after it. Each string must appear entirely on one line, but there may be other text on the line before or after. The lines containing the two strings are included in the header. If ‘%**start of header’ does not appear within the first 100 lines of the buffer, C-c C-r assumes that there is no header.

In LaTeX mode, the header begins with ‘\documentclass’ or ‘\documentstyle’ and ends with ‘\begin{document}’. These are commands that LaTeX requires you to use in any case, so nothing special needs to be done to identify the header.

The commands (tex-buffer) and (tex-region) do all of their work in a temporary directory, and do not have available any of the auxiliary files needed by TeX for cross-references; these commands are generally not suitable for running the final copy in which all of the cross-references need to be correct.

When you want the auxiliary files for cross-references, use C-c C-f (tex-file) which runs TeX on the current buffer’s file, in that file’s directory. Before running TeX, it offers to save any modified buffers. Generally, you need to use (tex-file) twice to get the cross-references right.

The value of the variable tex-start-options specifies options for the TeX run.

The value of the variable tex-start-commands specifies TeX commands for starting TeX. The default value causes TeX to run in nonstop mode. To run TeX interactively, set the variable to "".

Large TeX documents are often split into several files—one main file, plus subfiles. Running TeX on a subfile typically does not work; you have to run it on the main file. In order to make tex-file useful when you are editing a subfile, you can set the variable tex-main-file to the name of the main file. Then tex-file runs TeX on that file.

The most convenient way to use tex-main-file is to specify it in a local variable list in each of the subfiles. See Local Variables in Files.

For LaTeX files, you can use BibTeX to process the auxiliary file for the current buffer’s file. BibTeX looks up bibliographic citations in a data base and prepares the cited references for the bibliography section. The command C-c TAB (tex-bibtex-file) runs the shell command (tex-bibtex-command) to produce a ‘.bbl’ file for the current buffer’s file. Generally, you need to do C-c C-f (tex-file) once to generate the ‘.aux’ file, then do C-c TAB (tex-bibtex-file), and then repeat C-c C-f (tex-file) twice more to get the cross-references correct.

To invoke some other compilation program on the current TeX buffer, type C-c C-c (tex-compile). This command knows how to pass arguments to many common programs, including pdflatex, yap, xdvi, and dvips. You can select your desired compilation program using the standard completion keys (see Completion).

Previous: TeX Printing Commands, Up: TeX Mode   [Contents][Index]

27.11.4 TeX Mode Miscellany ¶

Entering any variant of TeX mode runs the hooks text-mode-hook and tex-mode-hook. Then it runs either plain-tex-mode-hook, doctex-mode-hook, latex-mode-hook, or slitex-mode-hook, whichever is appropriate. Starting the TeX shell runs the hook tex-shell-hook. See Hooks.

The commands M-x iso-iso2tex, M-x iso-tex2iso, M-x iso-iso2gtex and M-x iso-gtex2iso can be used to convert between Latin-1 encoded files and TeX-encoded equivalents.

Next: Hard and Soft Newlines, Up: Enriched Text   [Contents][Index]

27.14.1 Enriched Mode ¶

Enriched mode is a buffer-local minor mode (see Minor Modes). When you visit a file that has been saved in the ‘text/enriched’ format, Emacs automatically enables Enriched mode, and applies the formatting information in the file to the buffer text. When you save a buffer with Enriched mode enabled, it is saved using the ‘text/enriched’ format, including the formatting information.

To create a new file of formatted text, visit the nonexistent file and type M-x enriched-mode. This command actually toggles Enriched mode. With a prefix argument, it enables Enriched mode if the argument is positive, and disables Enriched mode otherwise. If you disable Enriched mode, Emacs no longer saves the buffer using the ‘text/enriched’ format; any formatting properties that have been added to the buffer remain in the buffer, but they are not saved to disk.

Enriched mode does not save all Emacs text properties, only those specified in the variable enriched-translations. These include properties for fonts, colors, indentation, and justification.

If you visit a file and Emacs fails to recognize that it is in the ‘text/enriched’ format, type M-x format-decode-buffer. This command prompts for a file format, and re-reads the file in that format. Specifying the ‘text/enriched’ format automatically enables Enriched mode.

To view a ‘text/enriched’ file in raw form (as plain text with markup tags rather than formatted text), use M-x find-file-literally (see Visiting Files).

See Format Conversion in the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual, for details of how Emacs recognizes and converts file formats like ‘text/enriched’. See Text Properties in the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual, for more information about text properties.

Next: Editing Format Information, Previous: Enriched Mode, Up: Enriched Text   [Contents][Index]

27.14.2 Hard and Soft Newlines ¶

In Enriched mode, Emacs distinguishes between two different kinds of newlines, hard newlines and soft newlines. You can also enable or disable this feature in other buffers, by typing M-x use-hard-newlines.

Hard newlines are used to separate paragraphs, or anywhere there needs to be a line break regardless of how the text is filled; soft newlines are used for filling. The RET (newline) and C-o (open-line) commands insert hard newlines. The fill commands, including Auto Fill (see Auto Fill Mode), insert only soft newlines and delete only soft newlines, leaving hard newlines alone.

Thus, when editing with Enriched mode, you should not use RET or C-o to break lines in the middle of filled paragraphs. Use Auto Fill mode or explicit fill commands (see Explicit Fill Commands) instead. Use RET or C-o where line breaks should always remain, such as in tables and lists. For such lines, you may also want to set the justification style to unfilled (see Justification in Enriched Text).

Next: Faces in Enriched Text, Previous: Hard and Soft Newlines, Up: Enriched Text   [Contents][Index]

27.14.3 Editing Format Information ¶

The easiest way to alter properties is with the ‘Text Properties’ menu. You can get to this menu from the ‘Edit’ menu in the menu bar (see The Menu Bar), or with C-mouse-2 (see Mouse Clicks for Menus). Some of the commands in the ‘Text Properties’ menu are listed below (you can also invoke them with M-x):

Remove Face Properties ¶

Remove face properties from the region (facemenu-remove-face-props).

Remove Text Properties ¶

Remove all text properties from the region, including face properties (facemenu-remove-all).

Describe Properties ¶

List all text properties and other information about the character following point (describe-text-properties).

Display Faces

Display a list of defined faces (list-faces-display). See Text Faces.

Display Colors

Display a list of defined colors (list-colors-display). See Colors for Faces.

The other menu entries are described in the following sections.

Next: Indentation in Enriched Text, Previous: Editing Format Information, Up: Enriched Text   [Contents][Index]

27.14.4 Faces in Enriched Text ¶

The following commands can be used to add or remove faces (see Text Faces). Each applies to the text in the region if the mark is active, and to the next self-inserting character if the mark is inactive. With a prefix argument, each command applies to the next self-inserting character even if the region is active.

M-o d ¶

Remove all face properties (facemenu-set-default).

M-o b ¶

Apply the bold face (facemenu-set-bold).

M-o i ¶

Apply the italic face (facemenu-set-italic).

M-o l ¶

Apply the bold-italic face (facemenu-set-bold-italic).

M-o u ¶

Apply the underline face (facemenu-set-underline).

M-o o face RET ¶

Apply the face face (facemenu-set-face).

M-x facemenu-set-foreground ¶

Prompt for a color (see Colors for Faces), and apply it as a foreground color.

M-x facemenu-set-background ¶

Prompt for a color, and apply it as a background color.

These commands are also available via the Text Properties menu.

A self-inserting character normally inherits the face properties (and most other text properties) from the preceding character in the buffer. If you use one of the above commands to specify the face for the next self-inserting character, that character will not inherit the faces properties from the preceding character, but it will still inherit other text properties.

Enriched mode defines two additional faces: excerpt and fixed. These correspond to codes used in the text/enriched file format. The excerpt face is intended for quotations; by default, it appears the same as italic. The fixed face specifies fixed-width text; by default, it appears the same as bold.

Next: Justification in Enriched Text, Previous: Faces in Enriched Text, Up: Enriched Text   [Contents][Index]

27.14.5 Indentation in Enriched Text ¶

In Enriched mode, you can specify different amounts of indentation for the right or left margin of a paragraph or a part of a paragraph. These margins also affect fill commands such as M-q (see Filling Text).

The Indentation submenu of Text Properties offers commands for specifying indentation:

Indent More ¶

Indent the region by 4 columns (increase-left-margin). In Enriched mode, this command is also available on C-x TAB; if you supply a numeric argument, that says how many columns to add to the margin (a negative argument reduces the number of columns).

Indent Less

Remove 4 columns of indentation from the region.

Indent Right More

Make the text narrower by indenting 4 columns at the right margin.

Indent Right Less

Remove 4 columns of indentation from the right margin.

The variable standard-indent specifies how many columns these commands should add to or subtract from the indentation. The default value is 4. The default right margin for Enriched mode is controlled by the variable fill-column, as usual.

You can also type C-c [ (set-left-margin) and C-c ] (set-right-margin) to set the left and right margins. You can specify the margin width with a numeric argument; otherwise these commands prompt for a value via the minibuffer.

The fill prefix, if any, works in addition to the specified paragraph indentation: C-x . does not include the specified indentation’s whitespace in the new value for the fill prefix, and the fill commands look for the fill prefix after the indentation on each line. See The Fill Prefix.

Next: Setting Other Text Properties, Previous: Indentation in Enriched Text, Up: Enriched Text   [Contents][Index]

27.14.6 Justification in Enriched Text ¶

In Enriched mode, you can use the following commands to specify various justification styles for filling. These commands apply to the paragraph containing point, or, if the region is active, to all paragraphs overlapping the region.

M-j l ¶

Align lines to the left margin (set-justification-left).

M-j r ¶

Align lines to the right margin (set-justification-right).

M-j b ¶

Align lines to both margins, inserting spaces in the middle of the line to achieve this (set-justification-full).

M-j c ¶

M-S

Center lines between the margins (set-justification-center).

M-j u ¶

Turn off filling entirely (set-justification-none). The fill commands do nothing on text with this setting. You can, however, still indent the left margin.

You can also specify justification styles using the Justification submenu in the Text Properties menu. The default justification style is specified by the per-buffer variable default-justification. Its value should be one of the symbols left, right, full, center, or none; their meanings correspond to the commands above.

Previous: Justification in Enriched Text, Up: Enriched Text   [Contents][Index]

27.14.7 Setting Other Text Properties ¶

The Special Properties submenu of Text Properties has entries for adding or removing four other text properties: read-only, (which disallows alteration of the text), invisible (which hides text), intangible (which disallows moving point within the text), and charset (which is important for selecting a proper font to display a character). The ‘Remove Special’ menu item removes all of these special properties from the text in the region.

The invisible and intangible properties are not saved.

Enriched mode also supports saving and restoring display properties (see Display Property in the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual), which affect how text is displayed on the screen, and also allow displaying images and strings that come from sources other than buffer text. The display properties also support execution of arbitrary Lisp forms as part of processing the property for display, thus providing a means to dynamically tailor the display to some conditions that can only be known at display time. Since execution of arbitrary Lisp opens Emacs to potential attacks, especially when the source of enriched text is outside of Emacs or even outside of your system (e.g., if it was received in an email message), such execution is by default disabled in Enriched mode. You can enable it by customizing the variable enriched-allow-eval-in-display-props to a non-nil value.

Next: Creating a Table, Up: Editing Text-based Tables   [Contents][Index]

27.15.1 What is a Text-based Table? ¶

A table consists of a rectangular text area which is divided into cells. Each cell must be at least one character wide and one character high, not counting its border lines. A cell can be subdivided into more cells, but they cannot overlap.

Cell border lines are drawn with three special characters, specified by the following variables:

table-cell-vertical-char ¶

The character used for vertical lines. The default is ‘|’.

table-cell-horizontal-chars ¶

The characters used for horizontal lines. The default is ‘"-="’.

table-cell-intersection-char ¶

The character used for the intersection of horizontal and vertical lines. The default is ‘+’.

The following are examples of invalid tables:

   +-----+       +--+    +-++--+
   |     |       |  |    | ||  |
   |     |       |  |    | ||  |
   +--+  |    +--+--+    +-++--+
   |  |  |    |  |  |    +-++--+
   |  |  |    |  |  |    | ||  |
   +--+--+    +--+--+    +-++--+
      a          b          c

From left to right:

1. Overlapped cells or non-rectangular cells are not allowed.
2. The border must be rectangular.
3. Cells must have a minimum width/height of one character.

Next: Table Recognition, Previous: What is a Text-based Table?, Up: Editing Text-based Tables   [Contents][Index]

27.15.2 Creating a Table ¶

To create a text-based table from scratch, type M-x table-insert. This command prompts for the number of table columns, the number of table rows, cell width and cell height. The cell width and cell height do not include the cell borders; each can be specified as a single integer (which means each cell is given the same width/height), or as a sequence of integers separated by spaces or commas (which specify the width/height of the individual table columns/rows, counting from left to right for table columns and from top to bottom for table rows). The specified table is then inserted at point.

The table inserted by M-x table-insert contains special text properties, which tell Emacs to treat it specially as a text-based table. If you save the buffer to a file and visit it again later, those properties are lost, and the table appears to Emacs as an ordinary piece of text. See the next section, for how to convert it back into a table.

Next: Commands for Table Cells, Previous: Creating a Table, Up: Editing Text-based Tables   [Contents][Index]

27.15.3 Table Recognition ¶

Existing text-based tables in a buffer, which lack the special text properties applied by M-x table-insert, are not treated specially as tables. To apply those text properties, type M-x table-recognize. This command scans the current buffer, recognizes valid table cells, and applies the relevant text properties. Conversely, type M-x table-unrecognize to unrecognize all tables in the current buffer, removing the special text properties and converting tables back to plain text.

You can also use the following commands to selectively recognize or unrecognize tables:

M-x table-recognize-region ¶

Recognize tables within the current region.

M-x table-unrecognize-region ¶

Unrecognize tables within the current region.

M-x table-recognize-table ¶

Recognize the table at point and activate it.

M-x table-unrecognize-table ¶

Deactivate the table at point.

M-x table-recognize-cell ¶

Recognize the cell at point and activate it.

M-x table-unrecognize-cell ¶

Deactivate the cell at point.

See Converting Between Plain Text and Tables, for another way to recognize a table.

Next: Cell Justification, Previous: Table Recognition, Up: Editing Text-based Tables   [Contents][Index]

27.15.4 Commands for Table Cells ¶

The commands M-x table-forward-cell and M-x table-backward-cell move point from the current cell to an adjacent cell. The order is cyclic: when point is in the last cell of a table, M-x table-forward-cell moves to the first cell. Likewise, when point is on the first cell, M-x table-backward-cell moves to the last cell.

M-x table-span-cell prompts for a direction—right, left, above, or below—and merges the current cell with the adjacent cell in that direction. This command signals an error if the merge would result in an illegitimate cell layout.

M-x table-split-cell splits the current cell vertically or horizontally, prompting for the direction with the minibuffer. To split in a specific direction, use M-x table-split-cell-vertically and M-x table-split-cell-horizontally. When splitting vertically, the old cell contents are automatically split between the two new cells. When splitting horizontally, you are prompted for how to divide the cell contents, if the cell is non-empty; the options are ‘split’ (divide the contents at point), ‘left’ (put all the contents in the left cell), and ‘right’ (put all the contents in the right cell).

The following commands enlarge or shrink a cell. By default, they resize by one row or column; if a numeric argument is supplied, that specifies the number of rows or columns to resize by.

M-x table-heighten-cell ¶

Enlarge the current cell vertically.

M-x table-shorten-cell ¶

Shrink the current cell vertically.

M-x table-widen-cell ¶

Enlarge the current cell horizontally.

M-x table-narrow-cell ¶

Shrink the current cell horizontally.

Next: Table Rows and Columns, Previous: Commands for Table Cells, Up: Editing Text-based Tables   [Contents][Index]

27.15.5 Cell Justification ¶

The command M-x table-justify imposes justification on one or more cells in a text-based table. Justification determines how the text in the cell is aligned, relative to the edges of the cell. Each cell in a table can be separately justified.

M-x table-justify first prompts for what to justify; the options are ‘cell’ (just the current cell), ‘column’ (all cells in the current table column) and ‘row’ (all cells in the current table row). The command then prompts for the justification style; the options are left, center, right, top, middle, bottom, or none (meaning no vertical justification).

Horizontal and vertical justification styles are specified independently, and both types can be in effect simultaneously; for instance, you can call M-x table-justify twice, once to specify right justification and once to specify bottom justification, to align the contents of a cell to the bottom right.

The justification style is stored in the buffer as a text property, and is lost when you kill the buffer or exit Emacs. However, the table recognition commands, such as M-x table-recognize (see Table Recognition), attempt to determine and re-apply each cell’s justification style, by examining its contents. To disable this feature, change the variable table-detect-cell-alignment to nil.

Next: Converting Between Plain Text and Tables, Previous: Cell Justification, Up: Editing Text-based Tables   [Contents][Index]

27.15.6 Table Rows and Columns ¶

M-x table-insert-row inserts a row of cells before the current table row. The current row, together with point, is pushed down past the new row. To insert a row after the last row at the bottom of a table, invoke this command with point below the table, just below the bottom edge. You can insert more than one row at a time by using a numeric prefix argument.

Similarly, M-x table-insert-column inserts a column of cells to the left of the current table column. To insert a column to the right side of the rightmost column, invoke this command with point to the right of the rightmost column, outside the table. A numeric prefix argument specifies the number of columns to insert.

M-x table-delete-column deletes the column of cells at point. Similarly, M-x table-delete-row deletes the row of cells at point. A numeric prefix argument to either command specifies the number of columns or rows to delete.

Next: Table Miscellany, Previous: Table Rows and Columns, Up: Editing Text-based Tables   [Contents][Index]

27.15.7 Converting Between Plain Text and Tables ¶

The command M-x table-capture captures plain text in a region and turns it into a table. Unlike M-x table-recognize (see Table Recognition), the original text does not need to have a table appearance; it only needs to have a logical table-like structure.

For example, suppose we have the following numbers, which are divided into three lines and separated horizontally by commas:

1, 2, 3, 4
5, 6, 7, 8
, 9, 10

Invoking M-x table-capture on that text produces this table:

+-----+-----+-----+-----+
|1    |2    |3    |4    |
+-----+-----+-----+-----+
|5    |6    |7    |8    |
+-----+-----+-----+-----+
|     |9    |10   |     |
+-----+-----+-----+-----+

M-x table-release does the opposite: it converts a table back to plain text, removing its cell borders.

One application of this pair of commands is to edit a text in layout. Look at the following three paragraphs:

table-capture is a powerful command.
Here are some things it can do:

Parse Cell Items   Using row and column delimiter regexps,
                   it parses the specified text area and
                   extracts cell items into a table.

Applying table-capture to a region containing the above text, with empty strings for the column and row delimiter regexps, creates a table with a single cell like the following one.

+----------------------------------------------------------+
|table-capture is a powerful command.                      |
|Here are some things it can do:                           |
|                                                          |
|Parse Cell Items   Using row and column delimiter regexps,|
|                   it parses the specified text area and  |
|                   extracts cell items into a table.      |
+----------------------------------------------------------+

We can then use the cell splitting commands (see Commands for Table Cells) to subdivide the table so that each paragraph occupies a cell:

+----------------------------------------------------------+
|table-capture is a powerful command.                      |
|Here are some things it can do:                           |
+-----------------+----------------------------------------+
|Parse Cell Items | Using row and column delimiter regexps,|
|                 | it parses the specified text area and  |
|                 | extracts cell items into a table.      |
+-----------------+----------------------------------------+

Each cell can now be edited independently without affecting the layout of other cells. When finished, we can invoke M-x table-release to convert the table back to plain text.

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27.15.8 Table Miscellany ¶

The command table-query-dimension reports the layout of the table and table cell at point. Here is an example of its output:

Cell: (21w, 6h), Table: (67w, 16h), Dim: (2c, 3r), Total Cells: 5

This indicates that the current cell is 21 characters wide and 6 lines high, the table is 67 characters wide and 16 lines high with 2 columns and 3 rows, and a total of 5 cells.

M-x table-insert-sequence traverses the cells of a table inserting a sequence of text strings into each cell as it goes. It asks for the base string of the sequence, and then produces the sequence by “incrementing” the base string, either numerically (if the base string ends in numerical characters) or in the ASCII order. In addition to the base string, the command prompts for the number of elements in the sequence, the increment, the cell interval, and the justification of the text in each cell.

M-x table-generate-source generates a table formatted for a specific markup language. It asks for a language (which must be one of html, latex, cals, wiki or mediawiki), a destination buffer in which to put the result, and a table caption, and then inserts the generated table into the specified buffer. The default destination buffer is table.lang, where lang is the language you specified.