Chris Maiorana has just announced the release of his Emacs for Writers handbook. It’s a 22 page handbook for the writer who would like to escape the confines of “word processors” like Word and its ilk. The handbook doesn’t assume any knowledge of Emacs on the part of the reader but explains how to start from scratch.
After a quick summary of basic navigation commands, Maiorana covers the fundamentals of writing with Org mode. That’s important because by using Org it’s easy to export your writing to whatever format you need. Maiorana concentrates on the ODT export because most publishers these days want to receive Word documents.
Maiorana doesn’t explain how he uses Emacs for his writing; he just explains how to use Emacs so that readers can develop their own style of working. Along the way he covers using abbreviations, word counting, and the installation of packages. He doesn’t say much about packages and the types of things that are available for writers but there are a lot of resources that cover that.
The handbook is offered on a “pay what you like” basis but no matter what you want to pay—even nothing—you’re going to have to provide a credit card number. Still, it’s nice to support efforts like this so even small contributions can help.
If you have any Emacs experience at all this handbook probably won’t tell you anything you don’t already know. If you’re a beginner and want to experience the joys of unfettered writing and editing without an opinionated work processor insisting on your doing things its way, take a look at Maiorana’s handbook and fire up Emacs. It’s not nearly as difficult as some would have you believe to get started, and as you learn more your writing efficiency will improve far beyond what’s possible with a word processor.