Because it does so much, Emacs has a reputation for being extremely complicated. We don't think that's warranted; we teach you Emacs from the ground up, covering first the basics and then some of the more advanced features. In this book, we have tried to reach as broad an audience as possible: from casual users to professional writers and web authors to programmers to system administrators. No matter what you do with Emacs, you will find it's easy to learn; after one or two sessions, you'll know the basics of editing any file. After you learn the basics, you can go on to learn about more advanced topics that provide the real benefits of using Emacs. These include:
Of course, many of the topics may not apply to you; some topics may be appropriate for a second reading but not for the first. Toward the end of the preface, we'll sketch several different ways to approach the book, depending on your interests and experience. |