GNU Emacs FAQ for MS Windows
This is the FAQ for using GNU Emacs on MS Windows, as distributed with Emacs 29.1.90.
This FAQ is maintained by the developers and users of Emacs on MS Windows. If you find any errors, or have any suggestions, please send them to the help-emacs-windows mailing list.
At time of writing, the latest version of GNU Emacs is version 29.1.90.
Copyright © 2008, 2010–2024 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This list of frequently asked questions about GNU Emacs on MS Windows with answers (“FAQ”) may be translated into other languages, transformed into other formats (e.g., Texinfo, Info, WWW), and updated with new information.
The same conditions apply to any derivative of the FAQ as apply to the FAQ itself. Every copy of the FAQ must include this notice or an approved translation, information on who is currently maintaining the FAQ and how to contact them (including their e-mail address), and information on where the latest version of the FAQ is archived (including FTP information).
The FAQ may be copied and redistributed under these conditions, except that the FAQ may not be embedded in a larger literary work unless that work itself allows free copying and redistribution.
Table of Contents
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Getting Emacs
- 3 Installing Emacs
- 3.1 How do I unpack the distributions?
- 3.2 How do I install Emacs after unpacking the binary zip?
- 3.3 How do I get image support?
- 3.4 What is my init file?
- 3.5 Where do I put my init file?
- 3.6 Troubleshooting init file problems
- 3.7 How do I associate files with Emacs?
- 3.8 How do I use find-file to open files that are on the Desktop?
- 3.9 How can I modify Windows to act more like X?
- 3.10 How can I modify Emacs to act more like a Windows app?
- 3.11 Window operations
- 3.12 How do I uninstall Emacs?
- 3.13 When I run Emacs nothing happens
- 3.14 Does Emacs contain a virus?
- 3.15 What known problems are there with anti-virus software?
- 4 Display Settings
- 5 Fonts and text translation
- 6 Printing
- 7 Subprocesses
- 7.1 Quoting issues
- 7.2 Programs reading input hang
- 7.3 Buffering in shells and subprocesses
- 7.4 16-bit subprocesses accessing the floppy drive
- 7.5 Killing subprocesses on Windows 95/98/Me
- 7.6 Sending EOF to subprocesses
- 7.7 How do I use a shell in Emacs?
- 7.8 How do I use Cygwin style paths in Emacs?
- 7.9 How do I make dired use my ls program?
- 7.10 How do I prevent shell commands from being echoed?
- 7.11 How can I make shell completion use forward slashes?
- 7.12 Why do I get incorrect DOS version messages?
- 7.13 Why is nothing happening when I enter shell commands?
- 8 Network access
- 9 Text and Utility modes
- 10 Developing with Emacs
- 11 Other useful ports
- 12 Further information
- Indexes
Next: Getting Emacs, Previous: GNU Emacs FAQ for MS Windows, Up: GNU Emacs FAQ for MS Windows [Contents][Index]
1 Introduction
This FAQ covers questions that are specific to running GNU Emacs on Windows. For more general information, see the other Emacs manuals. See Further information.
- Why support GNU Emacs on Windows?
- Which versions of Windows are supported?
- What other versions of Emacs run on Windows?
Next: Which versions of Windows are supported?, Up: Introduction [Contents][Index]
1.1 Why support GNU Emacs on Windows?
It is not our goal to “help Windows users” by making text editing on Windows more convenient. We aim to replace proprietary software, not to enhance it. So why support GNU Emacs on Windows?
We hope that the experience of using GNU Emacs on Windows will give programmers a taste of freedom, and that this will later inspire them to move to a free operating system such as GNU/Linux. That is the main valid reason to support free applications on nonfree operating systems.
Next: What other versions of Emacs run on Windows?, Previous: Why support GNU Emacs on Windows?, Up: Introduction [Contents][Index]
1.2 Which versions of Windows are supported?
Emacs 29.1.90 is known to run on all versions of Windows 9X from Windows 98 onward, and all versions of the NT family starting from NT 4.0; this includes all the modern versions from Windows XP and on. The Windows port is built using the Win32 API and supports most features of the X version, including variable width fonts, images and tooltips. Emacs on Windows can be compiled as either a 64-bit or a 32-bit executable.
Previous: Which versions of Windows are supported?, Up: Introduction [Contents][Index]
1.3 What other versions of Emacs run on Windows?
See Cygwin.
Emacs can also be compiled for MSDOS. When run on recent MS Windows, it supports long file names, and uses the Windows clipboard. See the msdos directory in the Emacs sources for building instructions (requires DJGPP).
Next: Installing Emacs, Previous: Introduction, Up: GNU Emacs FAQ for MS Windows [Contents][Index]
2 Getting Emacs
Next: How can I compile Emacs myself?, Up: Getting Emacs [Contents][Index]
2.1 Where can I download Emacs?
You can download Emacs releases from ftp.gnu.org mirrors. They are distributed as compressed tar files, digitally signed by the maintainer who made the release.
Pre-compiled binaries for MS Windows may be made available on a best-effort basis in the windows subdirectory of the above ftp site (as zip files digitally signed by the person who built them). See the README file in that directory for more information. Building Emacs from source yourself should be straightforward, following the instructions in the nt directory, so we encourage you to give it a try. See How can I compile Emacs myself?.
The development version of Emacs is available from Savannah, the GNU development site.
Next: How do I use a debugger on Emacs?, Previous: Where can I download Emacs?, Up: Getting Emacs [Contents][Index]
2.2 How can I compile Emacs myself?
To compile Emacs on a 64-bit version of Windows 7 or newer, we recommend to use the MinGW-w64 port of GCC and Binutils with the MSYS2 suite of tools. For the details, see the file nt/INSTALL.W64 in the Emacs source distribution.
If you need to build or run Emacs on MS Windows before Windows 7, you have to use the MinGW port of GCC and the MSYS suite of tools. The file nt/INSTALL in Emacs source distribution contains the details.
Support for displaying images, as well as XML/HTML rendering and TLS networking requires external libraries, the headers and import libraries for which will need to be installed where your compiler can find them. Again, the details, including URLs of sites where you can download these libraries are in nt/INSTALL.W64 or nt/INSTALL. See Other useful ports, for auxiliary tools you may wish to install and use in conjunction with Emacs.
After unpacking the source, or checking out of the repository, be sure to read the instructions in nt/README and the respective install file.
Previous: How can I compile Emacs myself?, Up: Getting Emacs [Contents][Index]
2.3 How do I use a debugger on Emacs?
By default, Emacs is compiled with debugging on, and optimizations enabled. The optimizations may interfere with some types of debugging; the debugger may not show clearly where it is, or may not be able to inspect certain variables. If this is the case, reconfigure with CFLAGS='-O0 -g3'
The file etc/DEBUG contains general debugging hints, as well as specific notes about debugging Emacs.
GDB is the GNU debugger, which can be used to debug Emacs when it has been compiled with GCC. The best results will be obtained if you start gdb from the src directory as gdb ./emacs.exe. This will load the init file .gdbinit1 in that directory, to define some extra commands for working with lisp while debugging, and set up breakpoints to catch abnormal aborts.
A Windows port of GDB is installed with MinGW64-w64 and MSYS2 (‘mingw-w64-<arch>-toolchain’ group) or can be found on MinGW download sites and on some others.
Next: Display Settings, Previous: Getting Emacs, Up: GNU Emacs FAQ for MS Windows [Contents][Index]
3 Installing Emacs
- How do I unpack the distributions?
- How do I install Emacs after unpacking the binary zip?
- How do I get image support?
- What is my init file?
- Where do I put my init file?
- Troubleshooting init file problems
- How do I associate files with Emacs?
- How do I use find-file to open files that are on the Desktop?
- How can I modify Windows to act more like X?
- How can I modify Emacs to act more like a Windows app?
- Window operations
- How do I uninstall Emacs?
- When I run Emacs nothing happens
- Does Emacs contain a virus?
- What known problems are there with anti-virus software?
Next: How do I install Emacs after unpacking the binary zip?, Up: Installing Emacs [Contents][Index]
3.1 How do I unpack the distributions?
The binary distributions are distributed as zip files, which are handled natively by Windows XP and later. For earlier versions, there are many tools that can handle the zip format, from InfoZip’s command line unzip tool, to 7zip’s multi-format graphical archive explorer. (Although popular, WinZip has caused problems with line-ends in the past, and is not Free software, so we do not recommend it.)
Source distributions are distributed as .tar.gz or
.tar.xz files. 7zip and similar multi-format graphical tools
can handle these, or you can get Windows ports of the command line
gzip and tar tools from multiple sources, or use bsdtar
.
See Other useful ports.
The command to unpack a source distribution from the command line is:
tar xzf emacs-29.1.90.tar.gz
If this does not work with the versions of tar and gzip that you have, you may need to try a two step process:
gzip -dc emacs-29.1.90.tar.gz | tar xf -
You may see many messages from tar complaining about being unable to change the modification time on directories, and from gzip complaining about a broken pipe. These messages are usually harmless, caused by incomplete ports that are not fully aware of the limitations of Windows.
And here’s an example of using bsdtar
(from the
‘libarchive’ package) to unpack a .tar.xz archive:
bsdtar -xf emacs-29.1.90.tar.xz
Expect bsdtar
to unpack the whole distribution without any
complaints.
Once you unpack the source distribution, look in the nt directory for build instructions.
Next: How do I get image support?, Previous: How do I unpack the distributions?, Up: Installing Emacs [Contents][Index]
3.2 How do I install Emacs after unpacking the binary zip?
You can run Emacs without any extra steps, but if you want icons in your Start Menu, or for Emacs to detect the image libraries that are already installed on your system as part of GTK+, then you should run the program addpm.exe, which is usually installed into the same bin directory with emacs.exe.
Next: What is my init file?, Previous: How do I install Emacs after unpacking the binary zip?, Up: Installing Emacs [Contents][Index]
3.3 How do I get image support?
Emacs has built in support for XBM and PBM/PGM/PPM images. This is sufficient to see the monochrome splash screen and tool-bar icons. Since v22.2, the official precompiled binaries for Windows have bundled libXpm, which is required to display the color versions of those images.
Emacs is compiled to recognize JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIFF, and RSVG images also, but displaying these image types require external DLLs which are not bundled with Emacs. See Other useful ports.
Next: Where do I put my init file?, Previous: How do I get image support?, Up: Installing Emacs [Contents][Index]
3.4 What is my init file?
When Emacs starts up, it attempts to load and execute the contents of a file commonly called .emacs (though it may have other names, see Where do I put my init file?) which contains any customizations you have made. You can manually add lisp code to your .emacs, or you can use the Customization interface accessible from the Options menu. If the file does not exist, Emacs will start with the default settings.
Next: Troubleshooting init file problems, Previous: What is my init file?, Up: Installing Emacs [Contents][Index]
3.5 Where do I put my init file?
On Windows, the .emacs file may be called _emacs for backward compatibility with DOS and FAT filesystems where filenames could not start with a dot. Some users prefer to continue using such a name due to historical problems various Windows tools had in the past with file names that begin with a dot. The init file may also be called .emacs.d/init.el. Many of the other files that are created by Lisp packages are stored in the .emacs.d directory too, which keeps all your Emacs related files in one place.
All the files mentioned above should go in your HOME
directory.
The HOME
directory is determined by following the steps below:
- If the environment variable
HOME
is set, use the directory it indicates. - If the registry entry
HKCU\SOFTWARE\GNU\Emacs\HOME
is set, use the directory it indicates. - If the registry entry
HKLM\SOFTWARE\GNU\Emacs\HOME
is set, use the directory it indicates. Not recommended, as it results in users sharing the same HOME directory. - If C:\.emacs exists, then use C:/. This is for
backward compatibility, as previous versions defaulted to C:/
if
HOME
was not set. - Use the user’s AppData directory, usually a directory called AppData under the user’s profile directory, the location of which varies according to Windows version and whether the computer is part of a domain.
Within Emacs, ~ at the beginning of a file name is expanded to your
HOME
directory, so you can always find your .emacs file
by typing the command C-x C-f ~/.emacs.
Next: How do I associate files with Emacs?, Previous: Where do I put my init file?, Up: Installing Emacs [Contents][Index]
3.6 Troubleshooting init file problems
If you’ve set HOME
to a directory using one of the above
methods, and Emacs still doesn’t load your init file, the first
thing you should do is check to see what Emacs thinks HOME
is set
to. You can do this by evaluating the following expression in the
*scratch* buffer using C-x C-e:
(getenv "HOME")
Look carefully at what is printed in the echo area, and make sure the
value is valid. For example, if the value has trailing whitespace,
Emacs won’t be able to find the directory. Also, be sure that the
value isn’t a relative drive letter (e.g., d: without a
backslash or a forward slash after the colon); if it is, then
HOME
is going to be whatever the current directory on that drive
is, which is likely not what you want to happen.
Next: How do I use find-file to open files that are on the Desktop?, Previous: Troubleshooting init file problems, Up: Installing Emacs [Contents][Index]
3.7 How do I associate files with Emacs?
The recommended way to associate files is to associate them with
emacsclientw.exe
. In order for this to work when Emacs is
not yet started, you will also need to set the environment variable
ALTERNATE_EDITOR
to runemacs.exe
. To open files
in a running instance of Emacs, you will need to add the following
to your init file:
(server-start)
3.7.1 For use with Internet Explorer
You can use Emacs as the editor for composing mail for
‘mailto:
’ links, reading Usenet for ‘news:
’
links, and viewing source. The following registry entries control
this:
- Mail
- Key: HKCR\mailto\shell\open\command\(Default)
- Value: emacsclientw -e "(message-mail (substring \"%1\" 7))"
- News
- Key: HKCR\news\shell\open\command\(Default)
- Value: emacsclientw -e "(gnus-fetch-group (substring \"%1\" 5)"
- View Source
- Key: HKCR\htmlfile\shell\edit\command\(Default)
- Value: emacsclientw "%1"
Thanks to Jason Rumney and Sigbjorn Finne for these tips.
Next: How can I modify Windows to act more like X?, Previous: How do I associate files with Emacs?, Up: Installing Emacs [Contents][Index]
3.8 How do I use find-file to open files that are on the Desktop?
The location of the Desktop varies between different versions of
Windows, and in a corporate environment can be moved around by the
network administrator. On latest Windows versions, you can use the
value of the USERPROFILE
environment variable to find where the
desktop might be:
C-x C-f $USERPROFILE/Desktop
If this doesn’t work, then you probably have to forgo the keyboard just this once, and either drag a file onto the Emacs frame from the desktop, or use the file dialog (displayed when you use the toolbar or menu by default). Once you have a file from the Desktop inside Emacs, C-x C-f will quickly reveal where your desktop is kept.
Next: How can I modify Emacs to act more like a Windows app?, Previous: How do I use find-file to open files that are on the Desktop?, Up: Installing Emacs [Contents][Index]
3.9 How can I modify Windows to act more like X?
Next: How do I swap CapsLock and Control?, Up: How can I modify Windows to act more like X? [Contents][Index]
3.9.1 How do I make the active window follow the mouse?
Customize the variables focus-follows-mouse
and
mouse-autoselect-window
. The former can be used to mislead
Emacs into giving focus to other frames when the mouse is over them,
even though Windows has a click to focus policy by default (there is
software available to change that though). The latter can be used to
make Emacs use a focus-follow-mouse policy within its own frames.
You can also change the Windows click-to-focus policy by changing settings in the Registry. The details vary according to your Windows version; look on the Internet for instructions to enable “active window tracking” for your version of Windows.
Previous: How do I make the active window follow the mouse?, Up: How can I modify Windows to act more like X? [Contents][Index]
3.9.2 How do I swap CapsLock and Control?
This cannot be done within Emacs, but you can modify the scan code mappings in the registry or define a new keyboard layout to swap the keys on a system wide basis.
Next: Windows 95/98/ME, Up: How do I swap CapsLock and Control? [Contents][Index]
3.9.2.1 Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista?
- From Chris McMahon. To make CapsLock a Control key (leaving your
original control keys as they were), use this registry file:
REGEDIT4 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout] "Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,1d,00,3a,00,00,00,00,00
To swap CapsLock and the left Control key, use:
REGEDIT4 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout] "Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,03,00,00,00,1d,00,3a,00,3a,00,1d,00,00,00,00,00
Save these as files with a .reg extension, and double-click on them in Explorer, or “run” them from a command prompt to have them update your registry (you may need to reboot).
- Shane Holder gives some background on how "Scancode Map" is used
by the system:
It's a binary value that lets you map keystrokes in the low-level keyboard drivers in NT. As a result you don't have to worry about applications bypassing mappings that you've done at a higher level (i.e., it just works). Here's the format of the value: DWORD: 0x00000000 header DWORD: 0x00000000 header DWORD: length (in DWORDs) of remaining data, including terminating DWORD DWORD: mapping 1 ... DWORD: mapping n DWORD: 0x00000000 terminating null DWORD Each mapping DWORD has two parts: the input scancode, and an output scancode. To map scancode 0x1d (left control) to scancode 0x3a (caps lock), you want a value of 0x003a001d. Note that this does not swap the keys. Using just this mapping value, both the left control and the caps lock key will behave as caps-lock. To swap, you also need to map 0x3a to 0x1d, using 0x001d003a. This registry value is system wide, and can't be made user-specific. It also only takes affect on reboot.
- Ulfar Erlingsson has provided a registry file that sets the CapsLock key
to be a Control key and the Windows key to be an Alt key:
REGEDIT4 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout] "Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,03,00,00,00,1d,00,3a,00,38,00,5b,e0,00,00,00,00
Previous: Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista?, Up: How do I swap CapsLock and Control? [Contents][Index]
3.9.2.2 Windows 95/98/ME
Microsoft has a tool called keyremap that is part of their Kernel Toys add-ons for Windows 95. The tool has also been confirmed to work on Windows 98.
Next: Window operations, Previous: How can I modify Windows to act more like X?, Up: Installing Emacs [Contents][Index]
3.10 How can I modify Emacs to act more like a Windows app?
Many beginning users find Emacs difficult to use because its user interface is different in many ways. Emacs predates most UI standards, and experienced Emacs users are used to the way things are, so changing the defaults is difficult. Most of the “standard” behavior can be approximated in Emacs after some configuring though.
Next: Standard Windows key bindings, Up: How can I modify Emacs to act more like a Windows app? [Contents][Index]
3.10.1 Highlighting the selection
Emacs has a concept of a mark and point that is similar to selections in other programs. But the mark in Emacs is used for more than just defining the selected region, it lives on while you continue to edit and move around the buffer so it can also be a kind of bookmark. The history of marks is saved so you can pop previous marks back to the top of the stack to go back to somewhere you were some time ago. Because of this dual purpose, the region between mark and point is not highlighted by default unless you select a region by clicking and dragging the mouse.
The minor mode transient-mark-mode
changes the behavior of
the mark in two ways. First, it distinguishes between an active mark
that has just been defined or reactivated, and an inactive mark. When
the mark is active, some commands that normally act on lines, words,
buffers, etc., will instead act on the region. An inactive mark needs
to be reactivated to operate on it, unless mark-even-if-inactive
is set. Secondly, transient-mark-mode
also highlights the
region when it is active, providing the same visual clue that you get
in other programs. This mode is turned on by default in latest
versions of Emacs.
In addition to seeing the highlighting, new Emacs users often expect
editing commands to replace the region when it is active. This behavior
can be obtained with delete-selection-mode
, but see the following
question also.
Previous: Highlighting the selection, Up: How can I modify Emacs to act more like a Windows app? [Contents][Index]
3.10.2 Standard Windows key bindings
The key bindings of Emacs predate modern GUIs, and the keys that were
chosen by later GUIs for cut and copy were given important functions
as extended keymaps in Emacs. CUA mode attempts to let both bindings
co-exist by defining C-x and C-c as kill-region
and
copy-region-as-kill
when the region is active, and letting
them have their normal Emacs bindings when the region is not active.
Many people find this to be an acceptable compromise. CUA mode also
defines a number of other keys (C-v, Shift selection), and can be turned
on from the Options menu.
Next: How do I uninstall Emacs?, Previous: How can I modify Emacs to act more like a Windows app?, Up: Installing Emacs [Contents][Index]
3.11 Window operations
The function w32-send-sys-command
can be used to simulate
choosing commands from the system menu (in the top left corner of the
Window) and a few other system wide functions. It takes an integer
argument, the value of which should be a valid WM_SYSCOMMAND
message as documented in Microsoft’s API documentation.
Next: When I run Emacs nothing happens, Previous: Window operations, Up: Installing Emacs [Contents][Index]
3.12 How do I uninstall Emacs?
Emacs does not come with an uninstall program. No files are installed
outside of the directories you find in the binary zip archive, so
deleting those directories is sufficient to clean away the files. If
you ran addpm
, you’ll need to delete the Start Menu group
too. The registry entries inserted by addpm
will not cause
any problems if you leave them there, but for the sake of
completeness, you can use regedit
to remove the keys under
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
or HKEY_CURRENT_USER
:
SOFTWARE\GNU\Emacs
, and the key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App
Paths\emacs.exe
if it exists.
Next: Does Emacs contain a virus?, Previous: How do I uninstall Emacs?, Up: Installing Emacs [Contents][Index]
3.13 When I run Emacs nothing happens
Emacs could have failed to run for a number of reasons. The most common symptom is that, when Emacs is started, the cursor changes for a second but nothing happens. If this happens to you, it is quite likely that the distribution was unpacked incorrectly.
Check for the following to see if there was a problem during unpacking:
- Be sure to disable the CR/LF translation or the executables will be unusable. Older versions of WinZipNT would enable this translation by default. If you are using WinZipNT, disable it.
- Check that filenames were not truncated to 8.3. For example, there should be a file CONTRIBUTE in the top level directory; if this has been truncated to CONTRIBU or CONTRI~1, your distribution has been corrupted while unpacking and Emacs will not start.
If it is still not working, send mail to the help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org mailing list, describing what you’ve done, and what you are seeing. (The more information you send the more likely it is that you’ll receive a helpful response.)
Next: What known problems are there with anti-virus software?, Previous: When I run Emacs nothing happens, Up: Installing Emacs [Contents][Index]
3.14 Does Emacs contain a virus?
There have been reports in the past that some virus scanners claim that the Emacs distribution has a virus. This is extremely unlikely if you have downloaded Emacs from the GNU FTP site or one of its mirrors and the GPG signature for it is valid and listed in the GNU keyring, unless perhaps it is a new release made in the last few days, in which case you should exercise more caution and report the problem. Past problems seem to have been caused by virus checkers running into a buffer size limit when unpacking large tar.gz files for scanning, and reporting the failure as an “unknown virus”.
Previous: Does Emacs contain a virus?, Up: Installing Emacs [Contents][Index]
3.15 What known problems are there with anti-virus software?
Anti-virus and firewall software can block Emacs from starting subprocesses and opening network connections. Most such products have an Advanced mode where they will prompt you rather than silently blocking. In some cases the “scan all files” or “auto protect” option of anti-virus programs has caused failures running shell related commands within Emacs. See Why is nothing happening when I enter shell commands?.
Next: Fonts and text translation, Previous: Installing Emacs, Up: GNU Emacs FAQ for MS Windows [Contents][Index]
4 Display Settings
- Emacs in console mode goes beyond the window size
- What do I do if I have problems with my mouse buttons?
- How do I cut and paste text with NUL characters?
- How can I fix garbled text yanked from the clipboard?
- How do I change the sound of the Emacs beep?
Next: What do I do if I have problems with my mouse buttons?, Up: Display Settings [Contents][Index]
4.1 Emacs in console mode goes beyond the window size
The variable w32-use-full-screen-buffer
controls whether Emacs uses
the window size or buffer size to determine the number of lines on screen.
Normally the window size is correct, but when running Emacs over some
telnet servers, the buffer size needs to be used. Emacs tries to guess
the correct value at startup, but if it guesses wrong, you can customize
that variable yourself.
Next: How do I cut and paste text with NUL characters?, Previous: Emacs in console mode goes beyond the window size, Up: Display Settings [Contents][Index]
4.2 What do I do if I have problems with my mouse buttons?
Emacs assigns bindings assuming a three button mouse. On Windows, if
a two button mouse is detected, a hack is enabled which lets you
simulate the third button by pressing both mouse buttons
simultaneously. w32-mouse-button-tolerance
defines the timeout
for what is considered “simultaneous”. You can check how many
buttons Emacs thinks your mouse has with C-h v
w32-num-mouse-buttons
.
If you find yourself needing the mouse-3 bindings more often than mouse-2, you can swap the buttons with the following code in your init file:
(setq w32-swap-mouse-buttons t)
Next: How can I fix garbled text yanked from the clipboard?, Previous: What do I do if I have problems with my mouse buttons?, Up: Display Settings [Contents][Index]
4.3 How do I cut and paste text with NUL characters?
If you attempt to cut and paste text with NUL characters embedded in it, then the text will be truncated at the first NUL character. This is a limitation of the Windows clipboard, and does not affect killing and yanking from the kill-ring within Emacs.
Next: How do I change the sound of the Emacs beep?, Previous: How do I cut and paste text with NUL characters?, Up: Display Settings [Contents][Index]
4.4 How can I fix garbled text yanked from the clipboard?
You can try set-selection-coding-system
, but generally such
corruption is a thing of the past, as Emacs uses Unicode for the clipboard
by default now.
Previous: How can I fix garbled text yanked from the clipboard?, Up: Display Settings [Contents][Index]
4.5 How do I change the sound of the Emacs beep?
You can use the function set-message-beep
to change the sound
that Emacs uses for its beep. This affects both console and GUI frames.
The doc string contains a list of the system sounds you can use.
Next: Printing, Previous: Display Settings, Up: GNU Emacs FAQ for MS Windows [Contents][Index]
5 Fonts and text translation
- Font names
- How can I get bold and italic fonts to work?
- Multilingual font support
- How can I have Emacs use a font menu like on X?
- How can I control CR/LF translation?
Next: How can I get bold and italic fonts to work?, Up: Fonts and text translation [Contents][Index]
5.1 Font names
Fonts in Emacs 22 and earlier are named using the X Logical Font Description (XLFD) format. Emacs on Windows ignores many of the fields, and populates them with * when listing fonts. Former maintainer Andrew Innes wrote this explanation of what each field in the font string means and how Emacs treated them back in 19.34. Since then, multilingual support and a redisplay overhaul to support variable width fonts have changed things slightly; more character sets are recognized (and the old pseudo character sets are deprecated), and the resolution fields are used to calculate the difference between point and pixel sizes, but normally you should leave these at the system default. The foundry field is also populated with an indication of whether the font is outline (.TTF, .ATM) or raster (.FON) based when fonts are listed, which may let you differentiate between two fonts with the same name and different technologies.
Starting with Emacs 23, the preferred font name format is the simpler and more flexible fontconfig format. XLFD names will continue to be supported for backward compatibility.
XLFD: -*-Courier New-normal-r-*-*-13-*-*-*-c-*-iso8859-1 Fontconfig: Courier New-13
To find the XFLD name for a font, you can execute the following in the *scratch* buffer by pressing C-j at the end of the line:
(x-select-font nil t)
To see a complete list of fonts, execute the following Lisp snippet by typing it into the *scratch* buffer and pressing C-x C-e at the end of the second line:
(dolist (font (x-list-fonts "*")) (insert (format "%s\n" font)))
The command line options and frame-parameters for changing the default font in Emacs are documented in the manual. Fonts can also be used when defining faces, though family and size are generally specified individually there. In addition, Emacs on Windows reads the registry to find X Resources. This is also documented in the manual.
Next: Multilingual font support, Previous: Font names, Up: Fonts and text translation [Contents][Index]
5.2 How can I get bold and italic fonts to work?
Emacs will only use the italic (and bold) versions of a font automatically if it has the same width as the normal version. Many fonts have italic and bold versions that are slightly wider. It will also only use real bold and italic fonts by default, where other applications may use synthesized variations that are derived from the normal font. To enable more italic and bold fonts to be displayed, you can enable synthesized fonts and manually set the font for italic, bold and bold-italic as follows:
(setq w32-enable-synthesized-fonts t) (set-face-font 'italic "-*-Courier New-normal-i-*-*-11-*-*-*-c-*-iso8859-1") (set-face-font 'bold-italic "-*-Courier New-bold-i-*-*-11-*-*-*-c-*-iso8859-1")
The w32-enable-synthesized-fonts
variable is obsolete starting
from Emacs 24.4, as Emacs no longer has this limitation.
Next: How can I have Emacs use a font menu like on X?, Previous: How can I get bold and italic fonts to work?, Up: Fonts and text translation [Contents][Index]
5.3 Multilingual font support
- Is it possible to display all the supported languages?
- How do I get Emacs to display non-latin characters?
- Where can I find fonts for other languages?
- How do I use third party programs to display multibyte characters?
- Can I use a font with a name in my language?
Next: How do I get Emacs to display non-latin characters?, Up: Multilingual font support [Contents][Index]
5.3.1 Is it possible to display all the supported languages?
To display all the languages that Emacs is capable of displaying, you will require the BDF fonts from the GNU intlfonts package. See How do I use bdf fonts with Emacs?.
For many languages, native truetype fonts are sufficient, and in Emacs 23 the need for BDF fonts will disappear for almost all languages. At the time of writing, all supported characters are able to be displayed with appropriate truetype or opentype fonts.
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5.3.2 How do I get Emacs to display non-latin characters?
Recent versions of Emacs display a large range of characters out of
the box, but if you are having problems with a particular character
set which you know you have fonts for, you can try defining a
new fontset with create-fontset-from-ascii-font
or
create-fontset-from-fontset-spec
.
(create-fontset-from-fontset-spec "-*-Courier New-normal-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-c-*-fontset-most, latin-iso8859-2:-*-Courier New-normal-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-c-*-iso8859-2, latin-iso8859-3:-*-Courier New-normal-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-c-*-iso8859-3, latin-iso8859-4:-*-Courier New-normal-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-c-*-iso8859-4, cyrillic-iso8859-5:-*-Courier New-normal-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-c-*-iso8859-5, greek-iso8859-7:-*-Courier New-normal-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-c-*-iso8859-7, latin-iso8859-9:-*-Courier New-normal-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-c-*-iso8859-9, japanese-jisx0208:-*-MS Gothic-normal-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-c-*-jisx0208-sjis, katakana-jisx0201:-*-MS Gothic-normal-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-c-*-jisx0208-sjis, latin-jisx0201:-*-MS Gothic-normal-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-c-*-jisx0208-sjis, japanese-jisx0208-1978:-*-MS Gothic-normal-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-c-*-jisx0208-sjis, korean-ksc5601:-*-Gulim-normal-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-c-*-ksc5601-*, chinese-gb2312:-*-MS Song-normal-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-c-*-gb2312-*, chinese-big5-1:-*-MingLiU-normal-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-c-*-big5-*, chinese-big5-2:-*-MingLiU-normal-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-c-*-big5-*" t)
Alternatively, you can augment the default fontset with information of which fonts to use for certain ranges of characters or for specific scripts/character sets. See Modifying Fontsets in The GNU Emacs Manual, for details and some useful examples.
Next: How do I use third party programs to display multibyte characters?, Previous: How do I get Emacs to display non-latin characters?, Up: Multilingual font support [Contents][Index]
5.3.3 Where can I find fonts for other languages?
In addition to the wide range of fonts that come with the language support packages of various components of Windows itself, GNU/Linux distributions these days come with a number of Free truetype fonts that cover a wide range of languages. The GNU Unifont project contains glyphs for most of the Unicode codespace, and can be downloaded from ftp.gnu.org mirrors.
Next: Can I use a font with a name in my language?, Previous: Where can I find fonts for other languages?, Up: Multilingual font support [Contents][Index]
5.3.4 How do I use third party programs to display multibyte characters?
You probably only need to do this on the non-Unicode versions of Windows (95, 98 and ME), and even then, various Windows and Internet Explorer updates have made third party software unnecessary in most cases. If you are having trouble displaying text, try defining a fontset with the font for the languages that the third party software handles set to what that software expects (which may not be an appropriate font for that language, but the third party software is intercepting it and using a different font behind the scenes). See How do I get Emacs to display non-latin characters?.
Previous: How do I use third party programs to display multibyte characters?, Up: Multilingual font support [Contents][Index]
5.3.5 Can I use a font with a name in my language?
Normally Emacs should initialize locale-coding-system
appropriately
based on your locale, which will let Emacs use font names in your local
language successfully.
Previous: How can I have Emacs use a font menu like on X?, Up: Fonts and text translation [Contents][Index]
5.5 How can I control CR/LF translation?
There are a number of methods by which you can control automatic CR/LF translation in Emacs, a situation that reflects the fact that the default support was not very robust in the past. For a discussion of this issue, take a look at this collection of email messages on the topic.
5.5.1 Automatic CR/LF translation
For existing files, Emacs scans the file to determine the line ending convention as part of the same scan it does to determine the file encoding. Embedded Ctrl-M (ASCII 13) characters and inconsistent line ends can confuse the automatic scanning, and Emacs will present the file in Unix (LF) mode with the Ctrl-M characters displayed as ‘^M’. It does this to be safe, as no data loss will occur if the file is really binary and the Ctrl-M characters are significant.
Previous: Automatic CR/LF translation, Up: How can I control CR/LF translation? [Contents][Index]
5.5.2 CR/LF translation by file system
The variable w32-untranslated-filesystem-list
defines whole
directory trees that should not have CR/LF autodetection performed on
them. The list can be manipulated with the functions
w32-add-untranslated-filesystem
and
w32-remove-untranslated-filesystem
. With auto-detection in
recent versions of Emacs, this is seldom useful for existing files,
but can still be used to influence the choice of line ends for newly
created files.
Next: Subprocesses, Previous: Fonts and text translation, Up: GNU Emacs FAQ for MS Windows [Contents][Index]
6 Printing
A lot of effort has gone into making it easier to print from Emacs on MS Windows, but this has still been insufficient to keep up with changes in printing technology from text and postscript based printers connected via ports that can be accessed directly, to graphical printers that are only accessible via USB. For details, see Emacs Wiki, https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/PrintWithWebBrowser, and https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/PrintFromWindowsExplorer.
Next: Network access, Previous: Printing, Up: GNU Emacs FAQ for MS Windows [Contents][Index]
7 Subprocesses
- Quoting issues
- Programs reading input hang
- Buffering in shells and subprocesses
- 16-bit subprocesses accessing the floppy drive
- Killing subprocesses on Windows 95/98/Me
- Sending EOF to subprocesses
- How do I use a shell in Emacs?
- How do I use Cygwin style paths in Emacs?
- How do I make dired use my ls program?
- How do I prevent shell commands from being echoed?
- How can I make shell completion use forward slashes?
- Why do I get incorrect DOS version messages?
- Why is nothing happening when I enter shell commands?
Next: Programs reading input hang, Up: Subprocesses [Contents][Index]
7.1 Quoting issues
The quoting rules for native Windows shells and Cygwin shells have some subtle differences. When Emacs spawns subprocesses, it tries to determine whether the process is a Cygwin program and changes its quoting mechanism appropriately.
Next: Buffering in shells and subprocesses, Previous: Quoting issues, Up: Subprocesses [Contents][Index]
7.2 Programs reading input hang
Programs that explicitly use a handle to the console (CON or
CON:) instead of stdin and stdout cannot be used as
subprocesses to Emacs, and they will also not work in shell-mode. The
default ftp client on Windows is an example of such a program - this
ftp program is mostly fine for use with ange-ftp
or
tramp
, but not for M-x ftp (see How do
I use FTP within Emacs). There is no convenient way for either Emacs
or any shell used in shell-mode
to redirect the input and
output of such processes from the console to input and output pipes.
The only workaround is to use a different implementation of the
program that does not use the console directly. Microsoft’s new
PowerShell appears to be another such program, so that cannot be used
as a replacement shell for Emacs.
Next: 16-bit subprocesses accessing the floppy drive, Previous: Programs reading input hang, Up: Subprocesses [Contents][Index]
7.3 Buffering in shells and subprocesses
You may notice that some programs, when run in a shell in
shell-mode
,
have their output buffered (e.g., people have found this happening to
them with sql-mode
). When the program has a lot of output, it
overflows the buffering and gets printed to the shell buffer; however,
if the program only outputs a small amount of text, it will remain
buffered and won’t appear in the shell buffer. The same can happen
in other subprocesses that themselves run other programs as
subprocesses, for example when using cvs
from Emacs, which
is itself configured to use ssh
, password prompts fail to
appear when expected, and cvs
appears to hang.
Although it may at first seem like the shell is buffering the output from the program, it is actually the program that is buffering output. The C runtime typically decides how to buffer output based upon whether stdout is bound to a handle to a console window or not. If bound to a console window, output is buffered line by line; if bound to a block device, such as a file, output is buffered block by block.
In a shell buffer, stdout is a pipe handle and so is buffered in
blocks. If you would like the buffering behavior of your program to
behave differently, the program itself is going to have to be changed;
you can use setbuf
and setvbuf
to manipulate
the buffering semantics.
Some programs handle this by having an explicit flag to control their buffering behavior, typically -i for interactive, or by a special environment variable. Other programs manage to detect that they are running under Emacs, by using ‘getenv("emacs")’ internally. Look in the program’s documentation for the way around this issue.
7.3.1 Perl script buffering
A handy solution for Perl scripts to the above problem is to use:
# Turn all buffering off. select((select(STDOUT), $| = 1)[0]); select((select(STDERR), $| = 1)[0]); select((select(STDIN), $| = 1)[0]);
Next: Killing subprocesses on Windows 95/98/Me, Previous: Buffering in shells and subprocesses, Up: Subprocesses [Contents][Index]
7.4 16-bit subprocesses accessing the floppy drive
If you are finding the 16 bit DOS subprocesses cause your A: drive to be accessed, hanging Emacs until the read times out if there is no floppy in the drive, check to see if your virus software is causing the problem.
Next: Sending EOF to subprocesses, Previous: 16-bit subprocesses accessing the floppy drive, Up: Subprocesses [Contents][Index]
7.5 Killing subprocesses on Windows 95/98/Me
Emacs cannot guarantee that a subprocess gets killed on Windows 95 and its descendants, and it is a difficult limitation to work around. To avoid problems on these systems, you should let subprocesses run to completion including explicitly exiting shells before killing the associated buffer.
If you find that while shutting down, Windows complains that there is
a running cmdproxy.exe
even though you carefully exited all
shells and none were showing in Task Manager before the shutdown, this
could be due to buggy interaction with your virus scanner.
Next: How do I use a shell in Emacs?, Previous: Killing subprocesses on Windows 95/98/Me, Up: Subprocesses [Contents][Index]
7.6 Sending EOF to subprocesses
When an EOF is sent to a subprocess running in an interactive shell
with process-send-eof
, the shell terminates unexpectedly as
if its input was closed. This affects the use of C-c C-d in
shell buffers. See
this discussion for more details.
Next: How do I use Cygwin style paths in Emacs?, Previous: Sending EOF to subprocesses, Up: Subprocesses [Contents][Index]
7.7 How do I use a shell in Emacs?
You can start an interactive shell in Emacs by typing M-x shell.
By default, this will start the standard Windows shell cmd.exe.
Emacs uses the SHELL
environment variable to determine which
program to use as the shell. To instruct Emacs to use a non-default
shell, you can either set this environment variable, or customize
explicit-shell-file-name
. You can also customize
shell-file-name
to change the shell that will be used by
subprocesses that are started with shell-command
and
related non-interactive shell commands.
7.7.1 bash
Cygwin bash is a popular shell for use with Emacs. To use bash as the default shell in Emacs, you can place the following in your init file:
(defun my-shell-setup () "For Cygwin bash under Emacs 20" (setq comint-scroll-show-maximum-output 'this) (make-variable-buffer-local 'comint-completion-addsuffix)) (setq comint-completion-addsuffix t) ;; (setq comint-process-echoes t) ;; reported that this is no longer needed (setq comint-eol-on-send t) (setq w32-quote-process-args ?\") (add-hook 'shell-mode-hook 'my-shell-setup)
WARNING: Some versions of bash set and use the environment variable
PID. For some as yet unknown reason, if PID
is set and Emacs
passes it on to bash subshells, bash dies (Emacs can inherit the
PID
variable if it’s started from a bash shell). If you clear
the PID
variable in your init file, you should be able to
continue to use bash as your subshell:
(setenv "PID" nil)
Next: How do I make dired use my ls program?, Previous: How do I use a shell in Emacs?, Up: Subprocesses [Contents][Index]
7.8 How do I use Cygwin style paths in Emacs?
The package cygwin-mount.el teaches Emacs about Cygwin mount points.
Next: How do I prevent shell commands from being echoed?, Previous: How do I use Cygwin style paths in Emacs?, Up: Subprocesses [Contents][Index]
7.9 How do I make dired use my ls program?
Dired uses an internal lisp implementation of ls
by default
on Windows. For consistent display of symbolic links and other
information with other programs (eg Cygwin) and performance reasons,
you may want to use a Windows port of ls
instead.
(setq ls-lisp-use-insert-directory-program t) ;; use external ls (setq insert-directory-program "c:/cygwin/bin/ls") ;; ls program name
Next: How can I make shell completion use forward slashes?, Previous: How do I make dired use my ls program?, Up: Subprocesses [Contents][Index]
7.10 How do I prevent shell commands from being echoed?
Some shells echo the commands that you send to them, and the echoed
commands appear in the output buffer. In particular, the default
shells, command.com
and cmd.exe
, have this behavior.
To prevent echoed commands from being printed, you can place the following in your init file:
(defun my-comint-init () (setq comint-process-echoes t)) (add-hook 'comint-mode-hook 'my-comint-init)
If shell-mode
still is not stripping echoed commands, then
you’ll have to explicitly tell the shell to not echo commands. You can
do this by setting the explicit-SHELL-args
variable
appropriately; where SHELL is the value of your SHELL
environment variable (do a M-: (getenv "SHELL") to see what it
is currently set to). Assuming that you are on NT and that your
SHELL
environment variable is set to cmd.exe
,
then placing the following in your init file will tell
cmd.exe
to not echo commands:
(setq explicit-cmd.exe-args '("/q"))
The comint package will use the value of this variable as an argument
to cmd.exe
every time it starts up a new shell; the
/q is the argument to cmd.exe
that stops the
echoing (invoking ‘cmd /?’ in a shell will show you all of the
command line arguments to cmd.exe
).
Note that this variable is case sensitive; if the value of your
SHELL
environment variable is CMD.EXE
instead, then
this variable needs to be named explicit-CMD.EXE-args
instead.
Next: Why do I get incorrect DOS version messages?, Previous: How do I prevent shell commands from being echoed?, Up: Subprocesses [Contents][Index]
7.11 How can I make shell completion use forward slashes?
The character appended to directory names when completing in a shell
buffer is controlled by the variable comint-completion-addsuffix
.
See its documentation (with C-h v) for details.
Next: Why is nothing happening when I enter shell commands?, Previous: How can I make shell completion use forward slashes?, Up: Subprocesses [Contents][Index]
7.12 Why do I get incorrect DOS version messages?
This might happen if, for example, you invoke nmake
in a
shell and it tries to create sub-shells. The problem happens because
when the shell is initially created, the first argument to the shell
is not the directory in which the shell program resides. When this
happens, command.com
fabricates a value for its
COMSPEC
environment variable that is incorrect. Then, when
other programs go to use COMSPEC
to find the shell, they are
given the wrong value.
The fix for this is to either prevent any arguments from being sent to
the shell when it starts up (in which case command.com
will
use a default, and correct, value for COMSPEC
), or to have the
first argument be the directory in which the shell executable resides.
Previous: Why do I get incorrect DOS version messages?, Up: Subprocesses [Contents][Index]
7.13 Why is nothing happening when I enter shell commands?
Some anti-virus software has been reported to cause problems with shells in the past. Try turning off options such as “Scan all files”. See What known problems are there with anti-virus software?.
Next: Text and Utility modes, Previous: Subprocesses, Up: GNU Emacs FAQ for MS Windows [Contents][Index]
8 Network access
- How do I use mail in Emacs?
- How do I open attachments in Gnus?
- How do I use FTP within Emacs?
- How do I use Tramp to work in Emacs via SSH?
- How do I use telnet with Emacs?
Next: How do I open attachments in Gnus?, Up: Network access [Contents][Index]
8.1 How do I use mail in Emacs?
Emacs comes with several options for reading and writing mail. These are documented in the manual, and the choice of which method to use depends on personal taste. There are some issues specific to Windows however, related to the fact that Windows machines do not have the mail infrastructure that is commonly installed on other platforms, so mail will not work without some configuration.
8.1.1 Outgoing mail
For outgoing mail, you will need to use smtpmail.el which allows Emacs to talk directly to SMTP mail servers. This is included with Emacs, and can be set up as follows:
(setq user-full-name "Your full name") (setq user-mail-address "Your@email.address") (setq smtpmail-default-smtp-server "domain.name.of.your.smtp.server") (setq send-mail-command 'smtpmail-send-it) ; For mail-mode (Rmail) (setq message-send-mail-function 'smtpmail-send-it) ; For message-mode (Gnus)
Note that if you want to change the name of the SMTP server after
smtpmail is loaded, then you’ll need to change
smtpmail-smtp-server
.
If you are experiencing problems with sending large messages, check
the value of the variable smtpmail-debug-info
. If it is
non-nil
, you should set it to nil
:
Next: Incoming mail with Gnus, Previous: Outgoing mail, Up: How do I use mail in Emacs? [Contents][Index]
8.1.2 Incoming mail with Rmail and POP3
For incoming mail using the Rmail package and a POP3 server, you will need the following configuration:
(setenv "MAILHOST" "domain.name.of.your.pop3.server") (setq rmail-primary-inbox-list '("po:your logon id")) (setq rmail-remote-password-required t)
Next: Other incoming mail options, Previous: Incoming mail with Rmail and POP3, Up: How do I use mail in Emacs? [Contents][Index]
8.1.3 Incoming mail with Gnus
Although Gnus started life as a Usenet news reader, it also makes a good mail reader, particularly if you subscribe to a lot of mailing lists, or you want to use IMAP rather than POP3, which is not supported by Rmail. See The Gnus manual in The Gnus manual.
Previous: Incoming mail with Gnus, Up: How do I use mail in Emacs? [Contents][Index]
8.1.4 Other incoming mail options
Other options for reading mail in Emacs include VM, MH-E and Wanderlust. MH-E is included with Emacs. The others require lisp or executable code that does not come with Emacs, so you should seek help where you obtained the packages from if you want to use them.
Next: How do I use FTP within Emacs?, Previous: How do I use mail in Emacs?, Up: Network access [Contents][Index]
8.2 How do I open attachments in Gnus?
In your HOME
directory create a file called .mailcap,
with contents like the following:
application/zip; "C:/Program Files/7-Zip/7zFM.exe" video/*; "C:/Program Files/VideoLAN/VLC/vlc.exe"
Warning: Associating MIME types with start
or other
generic Windows commands to open arbitrary files might seem like a
good idea, but it leaves your system as open to attack as Outlook
Express was at its worst. Especially dangerous is associating
application/* or */* in this way.
Next: How do I use Tramp to work in Emacs via SSH?, Previous: How do I open attachments in Gnus?, Up: Network access [Contents][Index]
8.3 How do I use FTP within Emacs?
Windows built in FTP client can be used with ange-ftp. Ange-ftp is the Emacs package that provides FTP connectivity to tramp, a multi-protocol remote file access package for Emacs that is enabled by default.
The Windows FTP client does have problems with some firewalls, due to
lack of passive mode support, so you may want to try an alternative
ftp client instead. Make sure that the client you are trying is in
your PATH
before the default Windows client, or rename the
default Windows client to avoid it getting in the way. Alternatively
you can customize ange-ftp-ftp-program-name
to the full path to
the version you are trying. See Other useful ports.
Next: How do I use telnet with Emacs?, Previous: How do I use FTP within Emacs?, Up: Network access [Contents][Index]
8.4 How do I use Tramp to work in Emacs via SSH?
Tramp can use a number of protocols to connect to remote machines to
read files and even run commands on those files remotely. A popular
one is ssh. As well as Cygwin versions of openssh, you can use
PuTTY’s command line plink program as the ssh client. The relevant
methods to use in tramp-default-method
or
tramp-default-method-alist
for these options are:
- openssh
-
scp
Uses scp for copying, ssh for shell operations. -
ssh
Uses ssh with encoding on stdin/stdout for file transfer.
-
- PuTTY
-
pscp
Uses pscp for copying, plink for shell operations. -
plink
Uses plink with encoding on stdin/stdout for file transfer.
-
Previous: How do I use Tramp to work in Emacs via SSH?, Up: Network access [Contents][Index]
8.5 How do I use telnet with Emacs?
To use telnet-mode on Windows, you need a telnet client that uses stdin and stdout for input and output. The default Windows client is a Windows application, and will not work as a subprocess. Several options exist, but information that was formerly in this FAQ is out of date now, so no concrete pointers are available.
Next: Developing with Emacs, Previous: Network access, Up: GNU Emacs FAQ for MS Windows [Contents][Index]
9 Text and Utility modes
- How do I use TeX with Emacs?
- How do I perform spell checks?
- Emacs and encryption
- Why doesn’t my wheel mouse work in Emacs?
- How do I use grep with Emacs?
Next: How do I perform spell checks?, Up: Text and Utility modes [Contents][Index]
9.1 How do I use TeX with Emacs?
You will need an implementation of TeX for Windows. A number of implementations are listed on the TeX Users Group website.
Next: Emacs and encryption, Previous: How do I use TeX with Emacs?, Up: Text and Utility modes [Contents][Index]
9.2 How do I perform spell checks?
Emacs has support for spell checking on demand (ispell
) and as
your type (flyspell
). Both packages depend on a copy of
ispell
3.2 or a compatible spell-checking program.
GNU Aspell is a popular choice these days, outdated Windows installers
are available from the official site.
Another possibility is Hunspell, which is available from
the ezwinports site. If you’re using the MSYS2 distribution, you can
install a recent version of either GNU Aspell or Hunspell through the
package manager Pacman. See Other useful ports.
Once installed, you will need to configure ispell-program-name
to tell ispell and flyspell to use aspell
or
hunspell
as a replacement for ispell. You can include the
full path to the aspell/hunspell binary, which means you
do not need to add its installation directory to the PATH
.
Next: Why doesn’t my wheel mouse work in Emacs?, Previous: How do I perform spell checks?, Up: Text and Utility modes [Contents][Index]
9.3 Emacs and encryption
GNU Privacy Guard is a Free replacement for PGP, with Windows binaries available. See https://www.gnupg.org/.
Next: How do I use grep with Emacs?, Previous: Emacs and encryption, Up: Text and Utility modes [Contents][Index]
9.4 Why doesn’t my wheel mouse work in Emacs?
Some wheel mice ship with default settings that do not send the standard wheel events to programs, but instead try to simulate scroll bar events. Usually this is configurable from the hardware specific pages on the mouse control panel. The middle button is often mapped in the same settings to have some functionality other than sending middle mouse button events. In some cases, uninstalling the manufacturer’s drivers and telling Windows to use the generic USB or PS/2 drivers is the only way to make the mouse work properly.
Previous: Why doesn’t my wheel mouse work in Emacs?, Up: Text and Utility modes [Contents][Index]
9.5 How do I use grep with Emacs?
The best way to use M-x grep with Emacs is to download a port of
GNU grep
. See Other useful ports.
If you want a quick solution without installing extra tools, a poor
substitute that works for simple text searches is to specify the built
in Windows command findstr
as the command to run at the
M-x grep prompt. Normally you will want to use the /n
argument to findstr
, to have it print the line numbers for
each hit.
9.5.1 How do I do a recursive grep?
The Emacs commands rgrep
, grep-find
and find-grep-dired
are all different interfaces for
grepping recursively into subdirectories. By default, they use the
command find
to determine which files to work on, and either
run grep
directly from find, or use xargs
to batch
up files and reduce the number of invocations of grep
.
Windows also comes with a find
command, but it is not in any
way compatible with the POSIX find
that Emacs tries to use.
Emacs expects a find
compatible with GNU findutils.
See Other useful ports. After you have installed it, you will need
to make sure that Emacs finds this version, not the standard Windows
find
command. You can do this by either renaming the
Windows command, changing your PATH
to ensure that the directory
containing the findutils bin directory comes before the Windows
system directory, or set the variable find-program
to the full
path to the findutils find
command.
An alternative if you have a recent version of grep is to customize
grep-find-command
to use ‘grep -r’ instead of both find
and grep. Another alternative if you don’t need the full capabilities
of grep is to use ‘findstr /n /r’; add the ‘/s’ option if
you want a recursive search.
Next: Other useful ports, Previous: Text and Utility modes, Up: GNU Emacs FAQ for MS Windows [Contents][Index]
10 Developing with Emacs
We recommend using the GNU Compiler Collection for developing C/C++ code from Emacs. The MinGW development toolchain provides Windows ports of GCC and other compilers.
The rest of this chapter describes other alternatives which you may need to use.
- How do I use Emacs with Microsoft Visual C++
- Emacs and Borland C++ Builder
- Is there a version of my VC software I can use with Emacs?
- How do I use the Perl debugger with Emacs?
Next: Emacs and Borland C++ Builder, Up: Developing with Emacs [Contents][Index]
10.1 How do I use Emacs with Microsoft Visual C++
There are two ways you can use Emacs in conjunction with MSVC. You can use Emacs as the editor, and do everything else in the DevStudio IDE. Or you can use Emacs as an IDE, calling the MSVC command line tools to build your project.
Next: Using MSVC command line tools from Emacs, Up: How do I use Emacs with Microsoft Visual C++ [Contents][Index]
10.1.1 Emacs as the text editor for DevStudio
Christopher Payne wrote a Visual Studio add-in that makes Emacs the default text editor, this has now been taken over by Jeff Paquette. See the following two URLs for details:
- https://sourceforge.net/projects/visemacs/ for the latest version.
- http://www.smathers.net/VisEmacs.htm for notes on usage.
Previous: Emacs as the text editor for DevStudio, Up: How do I use Emacs with Microsoft Visual C++ [Contents][Index]
10.1.2 Using MSVC command line tools from Emacs
This is an app note on how to use Microsoft Visual C++ with Emacs. The experiments done below were done with Emacs 19.34.1 on Windows 95, using Visual C++ 4.0 Standard Edition. Your mileage may vary.
This writeup assumes minimal knowledge of Emacs hacking on the part of the reader.
- VC++ Environment Variables
- Setting the default compile command
- Reverting Buffers
- Edit with Emacs function for MSVC
Next: Setting the default compile command, Up: Using MSVC command line tools from Emacs [Contents][Index]
10.1.2.1 VC++ Environment Variables
There is a batch file in your VC++ installation’s bin directory called vcvars32.bat, which sets up the environment variables needed to run the VC++ command line tools. Arrange for those same environment variables to be set in your Emacs session. You can do this on Windows 9x by calling the vcvars32.bat script from autoexec.bat. On other versions of Windows you can set the environment variables globally using the System control panel.
For all versions of Windows you can alternatively set the variables
just inside Emacs by using setenv
calls in your init file.
See Where do I put my init file?.
You should now be able to compile from Emacs. Load a source file from a VC++ project. Type M-x compile. Replace the proposed command line with:
nmake -f ProjectName.mak
You will find that this defaults to a debug build. You can change it to a release build with:
nmake -f ProjectName.mak CFG="ProjectName - Win32 Release"
Next: Reverting Buffers, Previous: VC++ Environment Variables, Up: Using MSVC command line tools from Emacs [Contents][Index]
10.1.2.2 Setting the default compile command
Now set the default value for the compile command line. Add the following to your init file:
;; Set up for Visual C++ compiling (setq compile-command "nmake -f ")
If you work on the same project long term, you can add the project makefile to the string.
David Biesack suggests that perhaps it’s easy to write a Makefile in the project directory which does
PROJECT=MyProject all: debug debug: FORCE nmake /f $(PROJECT).mak CFG="$(PROJECT) - Win32 Debug" release: FORCE nmake /f $(PROJECT).mak CFG="$(PROJECT) - Win32 Release" FORCE:
and then you can simply change compile-command to nmake
.
Caleb T. Deupree reports that on VC++ 5.0 and up, "You can also set an option in Options/Build to export a makefile every time the project is saved, which you can then use to compile with ‘nmake -f project.mak’." VC++ 4.0 builds the make file every time, and there is no option.
Next: Edit with Emacs function for MSVC, Previous: Setting the default compile command, Up: Using MSVC command line tools from Emacs [Contents][Index]
10.1.2.3 Reverting Buffers
It is recommended that you use auto-revert-mode
in buffers
that you have open in both Emacs and MSVC++ at the same time. Then if
you mistakenly edit the file in MSVC++, Emacs will pick up your
changes immediately, rather than after you have written lots more code
and attempt to save.
Previous: Reverting Buffers, Up: Using MSVC command line tools from Emacs [Contents][Index]
10.1.2.4 Edit with Emacs function for MSVC
You can also set up VC++ to import a file into Emacs for you, all
ready for editing. In VC++, go to the Tools
pull-down menu, and
click on Customize...
. In the Tools
tab, click on
Add
. Use Browse
to locate the
emacsclientw.exe file in your Emacs bin directory, and
select it. For arguments, use +$(CurLine)
"$(FilePath)" and for the directory use the $(WkspDir)
(the quotes around FilePath handle paths with spaces in them). Set the
Menu Text to say "Em&acs". The +$(CurLine) will set point in
Emacs to the same line as the cursor position in VC++. The ampersand
in the word Em&acs
allows you to select emacs from the keyboard.
(E is already used for the OLE control test container.)
You should now be able to go to any source file in your project. Then,
use the pull-down menu Tools->Emacs
. The active file in your
VC++ IDE should now be front and center in Emacs, all ready to edit as
you wish. If you use keystrokes to work the menus, try Alt-T A to
move the file into Emacs. Binding this tool to a keystroke will be
left as an exercise for the student.
If you have the option of saving files before running tools, make sure this option is set. (I don’t see it on VC++ 4.0.)
Next: Is there a version of my VC software I can use with Emacs?, Previous: How do I use Emacs with Microsoft Visual C++, Up: Developing with Emacs [Contents][Index]
10.2 Emacs and Borland C++ Builder
Jonathan Arnold has written an EmacsEdit “expert” for interfacing C++ Builder and Emacs.
Next: How do I use the Perl debugger with Emacs?, Previous: Emacs and Borland C++ Builder, Up: Developing with Emacs [Contents][Index]
10.3 Is there a version of my VC software I can use with Emacs?
If you are using a graphical revision control tool already, check if it comes with command-line tools. Many such GUI tools are just wrappers for the same command line tools that Emacs requires for its VC integration. Most of the supported VC systems have well supported Free native Windows binaries. For those that don’t Cygwin may be an option. See Other useful ports.
Previous: Is there a version of my VC software I can use with Emacs?, Up: Developing with Emacs [Contents][Index]
10.4 How do I use the Perl debugger with Emacs?
From Jay Rogers:
Some versions of the perl debugger itself need to be patched to work with emacs. They are perl versions 5.001 and less, and version 5.004_01. To fix, locate and change the code similar to the following code in lib/perl5db.pl
if (-e "/dev/tty") { $console = "/dev/tty"; $rcfile=".perldb"; } elsif (-e "con") { $console = ""; <---- change "con" to "" $rcfile="perldb.ini"; } else { $console = "sys\$command"; $rcfile="perldb.ini"; }
Doug Campbell also has some suggestions for improving the interaction of perldb and Emacs.
Next: Further information, Previous: Developing with Emacs, Up: GNU Emacs FAQ for MS Windows [Contents][Index]
11 Other useful ports
Next: MinGW-w64 and MSYS2, Up: Other useful ports [Contents][Index]
11.1 Cygwin
Cygwin is a popular complete POSIX emulation environment for Windows.
Most of its tools can be used with Emacs, and it covers a wide range
of ported software. The main shell used by Cygwin is GNU
bash
, but other shells are also available. Some Cygwin
tools may not interoperate well with Emacs or other native Windows
tools, due to the total immersion aspect of Cygwin, including its
non-native filesystem mapping.
If you choose to use Cygwin, then its tools will probably be all that
you need, but you will need to get image libraries from elsewhere, as
the Cygwin ones are not compatible with non-Cygwin software. In fact,
if Cygwin is on your PATH when you run Emacs, and Emacs does not find
other versions of the image libraries first, then the Cygwin ones can
cause problems. Cygwin developers recommend that you do not put
Cygwin on your system PATH
for this reason. Instead you can
make the Cygwin tools available within Emacs by setting exec-path
in your init file.
Next: EZWinPorts, Previous: Cygwin, Up: Other useful ports [Contents][Index]
11.2 MinGW-w64 and MSYS2
MinGW-w64 is a set of development tools that produce native Windows executables, not dependent on Cygwin’s POSIX emulation DLLs. MinGW-w64 has forked the original MinGW in 2007 in order to provide support for 64 bits and new APIs.
MSYS2 is software distribution and a building platform for Windows. MSYS2 is an independent rewrite of MSYS, based on modern Cygwin and MinGW-w64 with the aim of better interoperability with native Windows software. It plays the same role MSYS does in MinGW. Being a distribution, MSYS2 provides tools to build software as well as more than 2.600 precompiled packages ready for use.
Next: MinGW and MSYS, Previous: MinGW-w64 and MSYS2, Up: Other useful ports [Contents][Index]
11.3 EZWinPorts
The EZWinPorts
project provides many useful ports of recent versions of GNU and Unix
software. This includes all the optional libraries used by Emacs
(image libraries, libxml2, GnuTLS), RCS, Texinfo, a clone of
man
command, Grep, xz, bzip2, bsdtar, ID Utils, Findutils,
Hunspell, Gawk, GNU Make, Groff, GDB.
Next: GnuWin32, Previous: EZWinPorts, Up: Other useful ports [Contents][Index]
11.4 MinGW and MSYS
https://osdn.net/projects/mingw/
MinGW is another set of development tools that produce native Windows executables, not dependent on Cygwin’s POSIX emulation DLLs.
MSYS is a POSIX shell and minimal set of tools that are commonly used in configure scripts. Like Cygwin, this environment uses a non-native filesystem mapping to appear more POSIX like to the scripts that it runs. This is intended to complement the MinGW tools to make it easier to port software to Windows.
Next: GTK+, Previous: MinGW and MSYS, Up: Other useful ports [Contents][Index]
11.5 GnuWin32
https://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/
GnuWin32 provides precompiled native Windows ports of a wide selection of Free software and libraries. Unfortunately, the ports are outdated. Tools available here that are useful for Emacs include:
- Arc - used by
archive-mode
to edit .arc files. - Bzip2 - used by Emacs to automatically decompress .bz2 files.
- CompFace - used by
gnus
to display XFace headers in messages. - CoreUtils - GNU file, shell and text utilities (also in MSYS)
- DiffUtils - for
ediff
and producing patches - FindUtils - for
grep-find
and other file searches. - GifLib - library to support GIF images.
- Grep - for searching through files with
grep
. - Gzip - used by Emacs to automatically decompress .gz files.
- Jpeg - library to support JPEG images (also in GTK+).
- Lha - used by
archive-mode
to edit .lzh files. - LibPng - library to support PNG images (also in GTK+).
- LibTiff - library to support TIFF images (also in GTK+).
- Make - used by
compile
for building projects (also in MinGW) - OpenSSL - used by
gnus
to talk to servers over SSL. - Patch - used by
ediff-patch-file
and others to apply patches. - Tar - used by
tar-mode
to edit tar files. - TexInfo - used to build Emacs’ manuals.
- Unzip - used by
archive-mode
for extracting zip files. - Xpm - library to support XPM images (bundled with Emacs binaries)
- Zip - used by
archive-mode
for editing zip files. - Zlib - required by LibPng (also in GTK+).
Next: How do I read man pages?, Previous: GnuWin32, Up: Other useful ports [Contents][Index]
11.6 GTK+
GTK+ is a potential source for some of the image libraries that Emacs
requires. GTK+ is installed along with other ports of GUI software,
such as the GIMP image editor, and Pidgin instant messenger client.
If GTK+ is installed when you run addpm
, Emacs will use the
image libraries that it provides, even if they are not on the
PATH
. GTK+ ships with JPEG, PNG and TIFF support.
Previous: GTK+, Up: Other useful ports [Contents][Index]
11.7 How do I read man pages?
Man pages for Emacs and other ported programs that you have can be
read using Emacs’ built-in manual reader woman
. This
requires no external programs, but if you do have a port of
man
, there is also an Emacs wrapper man
that
which may be slightly faster. A Windows version of man
is
available from the EZWinPorts site (see EZWinPorts).
Next: Indexes, Previous: Other useful ports, Up: GNU Emacs FAQ for MS Windows [Contents][Index]
12 Further information
- Where can I get more information about Emacs?
- What mailing lists are there for discussing Emacs on Windows?
Next: What mailing lists are there for discussing Emacs on Windows?, Up: Further information [Contents][Index]
12.1 Where can I get more information about Emacs?
If you have general questions about Emacs, the best places to start looking are The GNU Emacs Manual, and the standard Emacs FAQ. In Emacs, you can browse the manual using Info by typing C-h r, and you can view the FAQ by typing C-h C-f. Other resources include:
Previous: Where can I get more information about Emacs?, Up: Further information [Contents][Index]
12.2 What mailing lists are there for discussing Emacs on Windows?
The official mailing list for Windows specific help and discussion is help-emacs-windows. See that link for information on how to subscribe or unsubscribe. The list archives are available online.
Previous: Further information, Up: GNU Emacs FAQ for MS Windows [Contents][Index]
Indexes
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