Use Info in Emacs

Tuesday December 30, 2014

There is a documentation system accessible from Emacs called Info. Here's advice from a parenthetical in the Note for Novices of An Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp:

"To learn about Info, type C-h i and then select Info."

Despite using Emacs, off and on, for many years, and also more recently hearing Sacha Chua recommend Info in her Emacs chats, I had never really used the Info system. But something on John Cook's blog pointed me to the intro to Emacs Lisp and I started reading it in a web browser until I got to that part:

"To learn about Info, type C-h i and then select Info."

At that point I did. I went into Emacs and learned about Info, and then I continued working through the intro to Emacs Lisp inside Emacs, which was a much better way to read it than inside a browser.

I wish I'd come to all this sooner.

If you'd like to try Emacs, you should find it easy to install using emacs.link. Once you have Emacs open on your computer, do the built-in tutorial. Then:

"To learn about Info, type C-h i and then select Info."

And then check out the Introduction to Emacs Lisp, also in the Info system.

Have fun!