5 Indispensable Tips for Emacs on Windows

Emacs is generally not very popular on Windows based operating systems. The default installation of Emacs leaves you with a very spartan UI and a very basic editor. However, due to Emacs’ extendibility, you can create a very powerful editor by customizing your .emacs file and making some OS specific tweaks. We will be concentrating on the latter as there are plenty of .emacs files floating around for your reference.I have 5 simple yet useful tips below, which I have tested with a GNU Emacs 23.0.0.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600) running on Windows XP.

Tip 1: Starting off With a Prettier Emacs

Most of us customize the fonts, colours and window position of Emacs. In fact, I have found that dark backgrounds are much suited to Emacs than the default light background. However, when Emacs starts up, it annoyingly shows the default fonts and colours first. As your .emacs files load, it jumps around and changes colours quite noticeably.

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