In some cases, the "heredoc" system of sh-mode triggers on things that aren't heredocs. Steps to repeat: Create a file, test.sh, with the following content: ========8<-------- # This is a normal comment echo "<>" # This is incorrectly highlighted as a heredoc comment. echo "This is also incorrectly highlighted as a heredoc comment" ========8<-------- emacs -Q test.sh Now, the two last lines are highlighted as a heredoc. -- Anders In GNU Emacs 25.0.93.1 (x86_64-w64-mingw32) of 2016-04-23 built on KAEL Windowing system distributor 'Microsoft Corp.', version 6.1.7601 Configured using: 'configure --prefix=/tmp/emacs --without-imagemagick 'CFLAGS=-O2 -fomit-frame-pointer -g0'' Configured features: XPM JPEG TIFF GIF PNG RSVG SOUND DBUS NOTIFY ACL GNUTLS LIBXML2 ZLIB TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS Important settings: value of $LANG: SVE locale-coding-system: cp1252 Major mode: Shell-script Minor modes in effect: sh-electric-here-document-mode: t tooltip-mode: t global-eldoc-mode: t electric-indent-mode: t mouse-wheel-mode: t tool-bar-mode: t menu-bar-mode: t file-name-shadow-mode: t global-font-lock-mode: t font-lock-mode: t blink-cursor-mode: t auto-composition-mode: t auto-encryption-mode: t auto-compression-mode: t line-number-mode: t transient-mark-mode: t Recent messages: For information about GNU Emacs and the GNU system, type C-h C-a. Setting up indent for shell type sh Indentation variables are now local. Indentation setup for shell type sh Mark set Quit Type C-x 1 to delete the help window. Load-path shadows: None found. Features: (shadow sort mail-extr cl-extra pp thingatpt emacsbug message dired format-spec rfc822 mml mml-sec password-cache epg epg-config gnus-util mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231 mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader sendmail rfc2047 rfc2045 ietf-drums mm-util help-fns help-mode easymenu cl-loaddefs pcase cl-lib mail-prsvr mail-utils vc-dispatcher vc-svn sh-script smie executable time-date mule-util tooltip eldoc electric uniquify ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type mwheel dos-w32 ls-lisp disp-table w32-win w32-vars term/common-win tool-bar dnd fontset image regexp-opt fringe tabulated-list newcomment elisp-mode lisp-mode prog-mode register page menu-bar rfn-eshadow timer select scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax facemenu font-core frame cl-generic cham georgian utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao korean japanese eucjp-ms cp51932 hebrew greek romanian slovak czech european ethiopic indian cyrillic chinese charscript case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help simple abbrev minibuffer cl-preloaded nadvice loaddefs button faces cus-face macroexp files text-properties overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env code-pages mule custom widget hashtable-print-readable backquote w32notify dbusbind w32 multi-tty make-network-process emacs) Memory information: ((conses 16 96532 11635) (symbols 56 20246 0) (miscs 48 45 138) (strings 32 18893 3179) (string-bytes 1 500720) (vectors 16 12785) (vector-slots 8 443089 4303) (floats 8 161 32) (intervals 56 291 18) (buffers 976 14))