GNU Emacs is the most popular and widespread of the Emacs family of editors. It is also the most powerful and flexible. Unlike all other text editors, GNU Emacs is a complete working environment -- you can stay within Emacs all day without leaving. This book tells you how to get started with the GNU Emacs editor. It will also "grow" with you: as you become more proficient, this book will help you learn how to use Emacs more effectively. It takes you from basic Emacs usage (simple text editing) to moderately complicated customization and programming.The second edition of Learning GNU Emacs describes all of the new features of GNU Emacs 19.30, including fonts and colors, pull-down menus, scroll bars, enhanced X Window support, and correct bindings for most standard keys. GNUS, a Usenet newsreader, and ange-ftp mode, a transparent interface to the file transfer protocol, are also described.Learning GNU Emacs, second edition, covers:

• Using Emacs as an Internet Toolkit (to use electronic mail and Usenet news, telnet to other computers, retrieve files using FTP, browse the World Wide Web, and author Web documents)
• Emacs' rich, comprehensive online help facilities
• How to edit files with Emacs
• Using Emacs as a "shell environment"
• How to take advantage of "built-in" formatting features
• How to use multiple buffers, Emacs windows, and X Windows
• Customizing Emacs
• The Emacs interface to the X Window System, which allows you to use a mouse and pop-up menus
• Whys and hows of writing macros to circumvent repetitious tasks
• Emacs as a programming environment
• The basics of Emacs LISP
• How to get Emacs

The book is aimed at new Emacs users, whether or not they are programmers. Also useful for readers switching from other Emacs implementations to GNU Emacs.