How do you normally type text in emacs?

How do you normally type text in emacs?

[rincewind]

How do you normally type plain English text in emacs?
It appears that emacs either doesn't break lines at all (i.e., it just 
wraps a line if it exceeds the screen width, disregarding word 
boundaries), or inserts newlines when you run 'fill' command! Or 
Fundamental is not a proper mode for exiting text (which mode I need, then)?

How can I make emacs automatically format paragraphs visually, without 
breaking words and without inserting newlines?

Re: How do you normally type text in emacs?

[Roy Smith]

In article <dcigbh$kal$1@gavrilo.mtu.ru>, rincewind <fake@not.real> wrote:

> How do you normally type plain English text in emacs?
> It appears that emacs either doesn't break lines at all (i.e., it just 
> wraps a line if it exceeds the screen width, disregarding word 
> boundaries), or inserts newlines when you run 'fill' command! Or 
> Fundamental is not a proper mode for exiting text (which mode I need, then)?
> 
> How can I make emacs automatically format paragraphs visually, without 
> breaking words and without inserting newlines?

Try "M-X text-mode".  You'll generally end up in text mode automatically if 
you name your files with a ".txt" extension.  It probably also want to turn 
on auto-fill mode (M-X auto-fill-mode).

Re: How do you normally type text in emacs?

[Neon Absentius]

On Sun, Jul 31, 2005 at 04:31:45PM +0400, rincewind wrote:
> How do you normally type plain English text in emacs?

I normally use a keyboard :).

> It appears that emacs either doesn't break lines at all (i.e., it 
> just wraps a line if it exceeds the screen width, disregarding 
> word boundaries), or inserts newlines when you run 'fill' command! 
> Or Fundamental is not a proper mode for exiting text (which mode I 
> need, then)?

The proper mode for editing text is text-mode.
If you give the extension ".txt" to your files 
then emacs automatically turns on the text mode.

> 
> How can I make emacs automatically format paragraphs visually, 
> without breaking words and without inserting newlines?

The "fill" functions do not break words but they
do insert newlines. I think that what you looking 
for ("soft" breaks) is accomplished by the package 
"longlines.el". Have a look

http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/longlines.el

hth

-- 
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    -- Neon Absentius
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Re: How do you normally type text in emacs?

[Björn Lindström]

rincewind <fake@not.real> writes:

> How do you normally type plain English text in emacs?

The same way I type plain Swedish. ;-)

> How can I make emacs automatically format paragraphs visually, without
> breaking words and without inserting newlines?

Files with an extension of .txt automatically gets the text-mode
treatment. Apart from what it does by default, here are some settings I
like to set:

(defun set-fill-mode-column ()
  (setq fill-column 72)
  (turn-on-auto-fill))
(add-hook 'text-mode-hook
          (lambda ()
            (set-fill-mode-column)
            (flyspell-mode)))

This turns on automatic wrapping at 72 columns, and turns on on-the-fly
spell checking.


For the spell checking to work as I want, this is what I do:

(setq ispell-program-name "aspell")
(setq-default ispell-local-dictionary "british")
(require 'ispell)
(global-set-key "\C-csf" (lambda () (interactive)
                           (flyspell-mode)))
(global-set-key "\C-csb" (lambda () (interactive)
                           (ispell-change-dictionary "british")))
(global-set-key "\C-css" (lambda () (interactive)
                           (ispell-change-dictionary "svenska")))


Good luck.

Re: How do you normally type text in emacs?

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 31.07.2005 um 17:19 schrieb Björn Lindström:

> (setq ispell-program-name "aspell")
>

I think this has become the default for recent Emacsen ... so it could 
be omitted.

--
Greetings

   Pete

Bake Pizza not war!

Re: How do you normally type text in emacs?

[Björn Lindström]

Peter Dyballa <Peter_Dyballa@Web.DE> writes:

> I think this has become the default for recent Emacsen ... so it could
> be omitted.

Thanks, that's good to know. Not all the sites my .emacs is used on have
Emacsen that can be described as recent, though, so I think I'd better
leave it in there.