Sams Teach Yourself Emacs in 24 Hours

In a perfect world, all text editing programs would be as easy to use as the lean, stripped down, and efficient GNU Emacs. Even with all its simplicity and numerous keyboard shortcuts, Emacs neophytes and longtime users will find a wealth of information and instruction on everything from creating a file to writing a macro in Sams Teach Yourself Emacs in 24 Hours.

Anyone who has ever used Emacs knows that, unless you are using XEmacs, this particular text editor avoids a clunky graphical user interface to display command and program options in favor of placing the complete functionality at the user's fingertips. Chapter 4 provides a thorough list of Emacs's control and meta or Esc key commands that allow you to move about your file and make structural changes like moving paragraphs and deleting entire lines of text.

Later chapters in the book address the usage of higher-level commands like Emacs's search and replace tool as well as writing macros, compact programs that automate common processes by recording sequences of keystrokes. Like the program it describes and tutors you on, Sams Teach Yourself Emacs in 24 Hours is easy to use and efficient in its approach to learning. --Ryan Kuykendall