30.7 Text Mode

When you edit files of text in a human language, it's more convenient to use Text mode rather than Fundamental mode. To enter Text mode, type M-x text-mode.

In Text mode, only blank lines and page delimiters separate paragraphs. As a result, paragraphs can be indented, and adaptive filling determines what indentation to use when filling a paragraph. See Adaptive Fill.

Text mode defines <TAB> to run indent-relative (see Indentation), so that you can conveniently indent a line like the previous line.

Text mode turns off the features concerned with comments except when you explicitly invoke them. It changes the syntax table so that single-quotes are considered part of words. However, if a word starts with single-quotes, then these are treated as a prefix for purposes such as capitalization. That is, M-c will convert ‘'hello'’ into ‘'Hello'’, as expected.

If you indent the first lines of paragraphs, then you should use Paragraph-Indent Text mode rather than Text mode. In this mode, you do not need to have blank lines between paragraphs, because the first-line indentation is sufficient to start a paragraph; however paragraphs in which every line is indented are not supported. Use M-x paragraph-indent-text-mode to enter this mode. Use M-x paragraph-indent-minor-mode to enter an equivalent minor mode, for instance during mail composition.

Text mode, and all the modes based on it, define M-<TAB> as the command ispell-complete-word, which performs completion of the partial word in the buffer before point, using the spelling dictionary as the space of possible words. See Spelling. If your window manager defines M-<TAB> to switch windows, you can type <ESC> <TAB> or C-M-i.

Entering Text mode runs the hook text-mode-hook. Other major modes related to Text mode also run this hook, followed by hooks of their own; this includes Paragraph-Indent Text mode, Nroff mode, TeX mode, Outline mode, and Mail mode. Hook functions on text-mode-hook can look at the value of major-mode to see which of these modes is actually being entered. See Hooks.