Beginning to see the light with org-mode

Posted by zoe
Sep 10, 2015 at 02:53 PM

Here’s where I’m coming from in learning org-mode:

- What I like most about it is that an item (which is just a line of text) can be transformed and structured in many different ways. The syntax is easy to see within the editor, but lots and lots of stuff can be tucked away inside, retrieved quickly with keyboard commands, and even re-filed under different headings. Filtering out the file according to the metadata is simple and intuitive.

- I am using Emacs ONLY for org-mode. I’m just considering org-mode within Emacs to be a single piece of software that I would learn like any other. Learning the keyboard shortcuts is somewhat of a pain, but it hasn’t taken me too long to get up to speed on it. I use lots of software that has distinctive keyboard shortcuts for mastering the workflow (Photoshop, for example), and learning the key commands to me is just part of learning to use the software.

- I have never used Emacs before for anything else. For plaintext/coding tasks at work I use SublimeText and quite appreciate its interface and simplicity.

- I’m syncing everything with Dropbox.

To answer your questions:

1) You can put a link to any file on your file system with simple syntax:
[[file:c:/path/to/the/file.pdf]] This creates a clickable link to the file. You can also use relative links. For example, if your .org file is in a folder that also has an “Images” folder, you can link to an image by typing [[file:./Images/image.jpg]]

2) Inline images work but are shown at full size unless you have ImageMagick installed. You can toggle them on an off. When they’re off, click the image link and it opens in a side-pane. Emacs can show the image itself, which is a nice feature that many text editors lack.

3) You can set the default font in Emacs to be whatever you want. By default it’s monospaced because of the assumption that you’re programming, but you can make it whatever. You can also set org-mode to indent your outline levels by default. Emacs has so little to it (it’s pretty much just a series of rectangles) that there’s not much else to modernize.

- Related: you can export your .org files in a matter of keystrokes. You can export to HTML (nicely formatted with tables of contents, add your own CSS if you want), formatted plaintext, even LaTeX and PDF.