1.3 Activation

Since Emacs 22.2, files with the .org extension use Org mode by default. If you are using an earlier version of Emacs, add this line to your .emacs file:

(add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.org\\'" . org-mode))

Org mode buffers need font-lock to be turned on: this is the default in Emacs¹.

There are compatibility issues between Org mode and some other Elisp packages, please take the time to check the list (see Conflicts).

The four Org commands org-store-link, org-capture, org-agenda, and org-iswitchb should be accessible through global keys (i.e., anywhere in Emacs, not just in Org buffers). Here are suggested bindings for these keys, please modify the keys to your own liking.

(global-set-key "\C-cl" 'org-store-link)
(global-set-key "\C-cc" 'org-capture)
(global-set-key "\C-ca" 'org-agenda)
(global-set-key "\C-cb" 'org-iswitchb)

With this setup, all files with extension ‘.org’ will be put into Org mode. As an alternative, make the first line of a file look like this:

MY PROJECTS    -*- mode: org; -*-

which will select Org mode for this buffer no matter what the file’s name is. See also the variable org-insert-mode-line-in-empty-file.

Many commands in Org work on the region if the region is active. To make use of this, you need to have transient-mark-mode (zmacs-regions in XEmacs) turned on. In Emacs 23 this is the default, in Emacs 22 you need to do this yourself with

(transient-mark-mode 1)

If you do not like transient-mark-mode, you can create an active region by using the mouse to select a region, or pressing C-SPC twice before moving the cursor.