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0. Notes

• This FAQ now takes advantage of all the GNU mirrors.
• The latest version of GNU Emacs is v22.2, but this FAQ mostly covers older versions. See The Introduction, Getting Emacs, and Installing Emacs, for more details.

1. Introduction

• What is Emacs?
• Which versions of Windows are supported?
• Related ports: MSDOS and Windows 3.11, MULE, DJGPP, XEmacs, MacOS

2. Getting Emacs

• Where can I get the source distribution?
• Can I get the source via CVS?
• Where can I get precompiled versions?
• I don't want the precompiled version. How do I compile Emacs myself?
• How do I use a debugger on Emacs?
• What are the differences between Emacs 21.x, and 20.x

3. Installing Emacs.

• How do I unpack the distributions?
• How do I install Emacs, after unpacking?
• What do I do if Emacs does not work?
• How do I customize Emacs?
• What is a .emacs file?
• Where do I put my .emacs, (or _emacs), file?
• Sample .emacs Files
• How can I have Emacs prompt me before closing?
• How do I associate files with Emacs (i.e., use Emacs as a server with gnuserv/gnuclient)?
  • Controlling the use of frames
  • For use with Internet Explorer
  • For use with Netscape
  • PIF file for gnuserv
• How do I use find-file to load files that are on the desktop?
• How can I modify Windows to be more like the X Windows System?
  • How do I make the active window follow the mouse?
  • How do I swap CapsLock and Control?
  • How do I use the Windows key as a Alt?
• How can I modify Emacs to be more like a Windows app?
  • Keypad keys, highlighting selections, etc.
  • Standard Windows application keymaps (C-c, C-v, C-x, etc.)
  • Window operations (maximize, minimize, etc.)
  • Open File dialog box
• How do I uninstall Emacs?
• When I run Emacs, nothing happens. What's the deal?
  • I just upgraded the operating system, and Emacs no longer works.
• I use anti-virus software. What problems can this cause?
  • Dr. Solomon's
  • McAfee
  • Norton
• Does Emacs contain a virus?
• Sometimes when I exit Emacs, my machine hangs or crashes immediately
• How does Emacs determine the name of my computer?

4. Display Settings

• How do I change the size, position, and color attributes of Emacs?
  • Windows Interface :
  • Size ,
  • Position ,
  • Colors .
• Customizing frame appearances.
• Determining screen resolution.
• Console Interface :
  • Size ,
  • Emacs in console mode goes beyond the window size. What do I do?
  • Position ,
  • Colors .
• How do I enable color syntax highlighting in Emacs (font-lock)?
  • Converting font-lock buffers into HTML markup
  • Font-locking embedded code (e.g., ASP) in HTML documents
• How do I change the format of the mode line?
• What do I do if I have problems with Emacs and my mouse buttons?
  • How do I use Emacs with a two-button mouse?
  • How do I get Emacs to recognize the third button on my mouse?
  • Strange two-button mouse behavior on Windows 95.
• How do I highlight the region between the point and the mark?
• How do I highlight matching parentheses?
• How do I cut & paste text with null characters?
• How do I change the sounda of the Emacs beep?
• When I yank previously copied or killed text into a buffer, it appears garbled. How can I fix this?

5. Fonts, and text translation

• How do I change the Font Emacs uses?
• Information on italic fonts.
• Console Fonts.
• Emacs multilingual font support
• Is it now possible to display correctly the sample of various scripts and languages accessible from the MULE menu?
• How do I get Emacs to display characters other than ISO-8859-1 (West European)?
• Where can I find fonts for other languages?
• How do I use third party programs for displaying multibyte characters with Emacs?
• How do I use a font with a name in my language?
• How do I use bdf fonts with Emacs?
• How can I have Emacs use a font menu similar to the one it uses on Unix (with fonts and fontsets listed)?
• The font I want to use is not in the font menu, how can I put it there?
• How can I control CR/LF translation (e.g., to access UNIX files via NFS)?
  • By file extension
  • By file system
  • Automatic

6. Printing

• How do I print from Emacs?
• Printing via Ghostscript
• How do I print with web browser?
• How do I print all these languages that Emacs is now displaying?
• How do I print to a printer that is directly connected to a network?

7. Sub-processes

• Quoting issues
• Programs reading input hang
• Buffering in shells
  • Perl script buffering
• DOS subprocesses
• 16-bit subprocesses accessing the A: drive
• Killing subprocesses on Windows 95/98
• Sending eof to subprocesses in Emacs (e.g., C-c C-d in shell buffers)
• How do I use a shell in Emacs?
  • bash
  • ksh
  • MKS ksh
  • tcsh
  • zsh
• How do I make dired use my external 'ls' program?
• How do I prevent shell commands from being echoed?
• How do I have Emacs complete directories with "/" instead of "\"?
• Within a shell, when I run programs I get "Incorrect DOS version" messages. Why?
• When I do any shell-related commands, nothing happens. What could be wrong?

8. Mail, News, and Network access

• How do I use mail with Emacs?
  • Outgoing: Standard , Queued
  • Incoming: RMAIL and POP3 , VM and POP3 , GNUS .
  • Using GNUS with IMAP.
  • Mail notification .
  • Leaving on server: RMAIL .
  • Leaving on server: VM .
  • Sharing with Unix: RMAIL .
  • Handling attachments: Metamail, MIME with tm ,
  • Biff tools: POP
• How do I read news with Emacs using Gnus?
  • How do I open attatchments with Gnus?
  • How do I authenticate with Gnus?
  • How do I use mime with Gnus?
  • How do I save messages in untranslated format?
• Network
  • How do I read online newspapers with Emacs?
  • How do I use the Emacs Web Browser, w3?
  • How do I use the browse-url package?
  • Package for using browse-url for dictionary, search, etc. functions
  • How do I use Emacs to translate text among languages?
  • How do I use FTP, (ange-ftp), within Emacs?
  • How do I use telnet with Emacs?

9. Text, and utility, modes for Emacs

• How do I use TeX with Emacs?
  • MiKTeX.
  • AUCTeX.
  • FPTeX.
  • Putting it all together .
• How do I perform spell checks, using Ispell?
• Emacs for SGML editing and publishing on Windows
• Emacs and Encryption, using GPG - or PGP
• How do I use an Intellimouse with Emacs?
  • Interactions with FlyWheel
  • Why does Emacs ignore my mouse wheel?
• How do I use grep with Emacs?
  • How do I do a recursive grep?
• How do I use EDT emulation mode in Emacs?
• How do I do "desktop saving" with Emacs?

10. Developing with Emacs

• How Do I Use Emacs with Microsoft Visual C++
  • VisEmacs
  • VC++ Environmental Variables
  • Setting the Default Command Line
  • Handling Compile Time Errors
  • Reverting Buffers
  • Exporting a File to Emacs
• Emacs and Borland C++ Builder
• Java
  • How do I get imenu to work with Java?
  • Creating TAGS files for Java source
  • Java Development Environment (JDE)
  • The Jacob class browser and project manager
  • Example instructions for installing Emacs/JDE/JDK
• How do I use revision/source control with Emacs?
  • Is there a version of RCS for Win32?
  • Is there a version of CVS for Win32?
  • What do I need to do to get vc-mode (version control) working?
  • vc-mode and Clearcase
• How do I use perl-mode with Emacs?
  • How do I use the perl debugger with Emacs?
• How do I use python-mode with Emacs?

11. Other Unix Ports, and further information

• Further Information.
  • Where can I get more information about Emacs?
  • NTEmacs Mailing List
  • Extra information about MULE
  • Where can I find more Lisp packages
• Other Unix utilities ported from Unix
  • Reading MAN pages without Man, (WoMan)
  • Where can I find a port of the diff program (e.g, for ediff)?
  • Where can I find a port of the patch program?
  • What other Unix tools have been ported to NT and/or Windows 95/98?