+@node Intro, Glossary, Distrib, Top
+@unnumbered Introduction
+
+ You are reading about GNU Emacs, the GNU incarnation of the advanced,
+self-documenting, customizable, extensible real-time display editor Emacs.
+(The `G' in `GNU' is not silent.)
+
+ We say that Emacs is a @dfn{display} editor because normally the text
+being edited is visible on the screen and is updated automatically as you
+type your commands. @xref{Screen,Display}.
+
+ We call it a @dfn{real-time} editor because the display is updated very
+frequently, usually after each character or pair of characters you
+type. This minimizes the amount of information you must keep in your
+head as you edit. @xref{Basic,Real-time,Basic Editing}.
+
+ We call Emacs advanced because it provides facilities that go beyond
+simple insertion and deletion: controlling subprocesses; automatic
+indentation of programs; viewing two or more files at once; editing
+formatted text; and dealing in terms of characters, words, lines,
+sentences, paragraphs, and pages, as well as expressions and comments in
+several different programming languages.
+
+ @dfn{Self-documenting} means that at any time you can type a special
+character, @kbd{Control-h}, to find out what your options are. You can
+also use it to find out what any command does, or to find all the commands
+that pertain to a topic. @xref{Help}.
+
+ @dfn{Customizable} means that you can change the definitions of Emacs
+commands in little ways. For example, if you use a programming language in
+which comments start with @samp{<**} and end with @samp{**>}, you can tell
+the Emacs comment manipulation commands to use those strings
+(@pxref{Comments}). Another sort of customization is rearrangement of the
+command set. For example, if you prefer the four basic cursor motion
+commands (up, down, left and right) on keys in a diamond pattern on the
+keyboard, you can rebind the keys that way. @xref{Customization}.
+
+ @dfn{Extensible} means that you can go beyond simple customization and
+write entirely new commands, programs in the Lisp language to be run by
+Emacs's own Lisp interpreter. Emacs is an ``on-line extensible''
+system, which means that it is divided into many functions that call
+each other, any of which can be redefined in the middle of an editing
+session. Almost any part of Emacs can be replaced without making a
+separate copy of all of Emacs. Most of the editing commands of Emacs
+are written in Lisp; the few exceptions could have been written
+in Lisp but are written in C for efficiency. Although only a programmer
+can write an extension, anybody can use it afterward. If you want to
+learn Emacs Lisp programming, we recommend the @cite{Introduction to
+Emacs Lisp} by Robert J. Chassell, also published by the Free Software
+Foundation.
+
+ When run under the X Window System, Emacs provides its own menus and
+convenient bindings to mouse buttons. But Emacs can provide many of the
+benefits of a window system on a text-only terminal. For instance, you
+can look at or edit several files at once, move text between files, and
+edit files while running shell commands.
+
+@include screen.texi
+@include commands.texi
+@include entering.texi
+@include basic.texi
+@include mini.texi
+@include m-x.texi
+@include help.texi
+@include mark.texi
+@include killing.texi
+@include regs.texi
+@include display.texi
+@include search.texi
+@include fixit.texi
+@include kmacro.texi
+@include files.texi
+@include buffers.texi
+@include windows.texi
+@include frames.texi
+@include mule.texi
+@include major.texi
+@include indent.texi
+@include text.texi
+@include programs.texi
+@include building.texi
+@include maintaining.texi
+@include abbrevs.texi
+@include picture.texi
+@include sending.texi
+@include rmail.texi
+@include dired.texi
+@include calendar.texi
+@include misc.texi
+@include custom.texi
+@include trouble.texi
+
+@node Copying, GNU Free Documentation License, Service, Top
+@appendix GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE