Question

I’m new to Emacs. I found many emacs plugins are released as an .el file. I’m not sure how to install them. Can I just put them in my emacs installation directory?

Answer 1

After placing it, say myplugin.el to your ~/.emacs.d/ directory, add the following in your .emacs file:

(add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/")
(load "myplugin.el")

Also, in many cases you would need the following instead of the second line:

(require 'myplugin)

In any case, you should consult the documentation of the package you are trying to install on which one you should use.

If you are unsure where your ~ directory is, you may see it by typing C-x d ~/ and pressing Enter.