Chapter 1: Introduction 1
1 Introduction
1.1 Preface
Org is a mode for keeping notes, maintaining TODO lists, and doing project planning with
a fast and effective plain-text system. It is also an authoring and publishing system, and it
supports working with source code for literal programming and reproducible research.
This document is a much compressed derivative of the comprehensive Org-mode manual.
It contains all basic features and commands, along with important hints for customization.
It is intended for beginners who would shy back from a 200 page manual because of sheer
size.
1.2 Installation
Important: If you are using a version of Org that is part of the Emacs distribution or an
XEmacs package, please skip this section and go directly to Section 1.3 [Activation], page 1.
If you have downloaded Org from the Web, either as a distribution .zip or .tar file, or
as a Git archive, it is best to run it directly from the distribution directory. You need to
add the lisp subdirectories to the Emacs load path. To do this, add the following line to
.emacs:
(setq load-path (cons "~/path/to/orgdir/lisp" load-path))
(setq load-path (cons "~/path/to/orgdir/contrib/lisp" load-path))
If you have been using git or a tar ball to get Org, you need to run the following command
to generate autoload information. command:
make autoloads
1.3 Activation
Add the following lines to your .emacs file. The last four lines define global keys for some
commands — please choose suitable keys yourself.
;; The following lines are always needed. Choose your own keys.
(global-set-key "\C-cl" 'org-store-link)
(global-set-key "\C-ca" 'org-agenda)
(global-set-key "\C-cc" 'org-capture)
(global-set-key "\C-cb" 'org-iswitchb)
Files with extension ‘.org’ will be put into Org mode automatically.
1.4 Feedback
If you find problems with Org, or if you have questions, remarks, or ideas about it, please
mail to the Org mailing list emacs-orgmode@gnu.org. For information on how to submit
bug reports, see the main manual.
