Question

I have been a programmer for a decade now, but I believe this is the first time I’ve ever asked a question on a forum. I just can’t figure this out and can’t find the answer already online.

I am trying to turn on CUA mode so that emacs is more bearable for a windows user (normal copy paste functions). I am running Windows 7 and installed emacs through the Lisp In A Box package. I understand that I need to add a line to my .emacs file or init.el file. I’m not sure which, but I can’t find either in my Lip In A Box install directory. The emacs package install also did not come with any tutorials or help files, so its really hard to pick this up.

I am stuck, any help is greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

For GNU/Emacs, you can choose to use any one of the following three file names as the start-up configuration file:

${HOME}/.emacs
${HOME}/.emacs.el
${HOME}/.emacs.d/init.el

It would probably be a good idea to decide on one of the three options and then stick to it – the first one seems to be the most widely used one. In any case, ${HOME} stands for your home directory — which is likely to be different from the Lisp In A Box install directory!

Coming from a Unix tradition, Emacs understands ~ (tilde) as an abbreviation for your home directory, so you can visit the .emacs file by typing:

C-x C-f ~/.emacs [ENTER]

(Note that the capital C is Emacs standard notation for a combination of the CTRL key and a second key, i.e. here you press CTRL-x CTRL-f which stands for “find-file” and will then ask you for a file name in the bottom part of the Frame (aka mini-buffer).)

If these are your first customizations, you will just see an empty buffer. Enter

;; start CUA mode every time Emacs starts
(cua-mode t)

and save the buffer with C-x C-s.

Next time you start Emacs, CUA mode should be turned on automatically.