I dont have a tutorial to offer you, but here's what made semi-comfortable with emacs:
- install the emacs starter kit [0] as it's much user friendly than the raw emacs
- learn the most used shortcuts (C-w to cut, M-w to copy, C-Y to yank (paste), C-x C-s to save, C-x C-f to open a file, C-k to kill a text, C-a to go at the start of a line and C-e to go at the end, etc.)
- try to use emacs for everything and slowly get more and more comfortable at it.
[0] https://github.com/technomancy/emacs-starter-kit
In Learning Emacs, any tips or tricks, best tutorial?technomancy
emacs-starter-kit
Developer Tools2008–2017
technomancy / emacs-starter-kit · Archived
emacs-starter-kit
[ARCHIVED] this is ancient history
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34Mentions
1Explicit recommenders
2.8KGitHub stars
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[ARCHIVED] this is ancient history
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Besides the inline manual that emacs has in itself. I recommend you to start using the Emacs Starter Kit [1]. Try to read the source and understand what it's doing. You will…
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HN mentions by year34 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2008-12-04 12:29:47 UTC to 2017-04-22 19:16:55 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | 2008-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2009-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2009 | 2009-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2010-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 7 | 0 | 7 |
| 2010 | 2010-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2011-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 9 | 1 | 8 |
| 2011 | 2011-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 7 | 0 | 7 |
| 2012 | 2012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 5 | 0 | 5 |
| 2013 | 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2014 | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 2015 | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
From the project README
An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.
Read the project’s introduction
Emacs Starter Kit
Version 3 of the Emacs Starter Kit is implemented as a prose guide to
various packages and settings which can greatly improve the Emacs
experience.
History
Older versions of the Starter Kit attempted to be one-size-fits-all
codebase intended to be dropped into your ~/.emacs.d directory
wholesale. While this proved very popular, taking a big bundle of
unrelated functionality leads to simply adopting things without
developing any real understanding. When something goes wrong or even
just behaves differently from what you'd like, you don't know where to
look to fix it.
I've since come to realize users are better suited by small, focused
packages which provide specific pieces of new functionality. So rather
than putting up a big pile of code, the Starter Kit has shifted to
become merely a guide. As an Emacs user, you're going to have to get
comfortable seeking out new pieces of elisp, bringing them in,
configuring them, and eventually writing your own. The Starter Kit can
help this process by giving hints as to where to start and what to
look for, but constructing a solid configuration is ultimately a
personal journey for which you must take the first steps.
Getting Started
I strongly recommend keeping your dotfiles under version control and
installing Emacs packages inside it using git subtree.
This avoids many common
problems with
package.el, and it allows you to seamlessly roll back upgrades which
introduce breaking changes as well as guaranteeing that all machines you
work on share the same versions.
(defun pnh-reinit-libs ()
(interactive)
(let ((generated-autoload-file (concat user-emacs-directory "my-autoload.el")))
(dolist (d (directory-files (concat user-emacs-directory "lib") t "^[^\.]"))
(dolist (f (directory-files d t "\\.el$"))
(byte-compile-file f))
(update-directory-autoloads d))))
(dolist (l (directory-files (concat user-emacs-directory "lib") nil "^[^\.]"))
(add-to-list 'load-path (concat user-emacs-directory "lib/" l))
(autoload (intern l) (concat l ".el")))
(when (not (file-exists-p (concat user-emacs-directory "my-autoload.el")))
(pnh-reinit-libs))
(load (concat user-emacs-directory "my-autoload.el"))
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Copyright
Copyright © 2008-2017 Phil Hagelberg and contributors
Files are licensed under the same license as Emacs unless otherwise
specified. See the file COPYING for details.
Read the full README on GitHub