20.7 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. When the previous line is not indented, indent-relative runs tab-to-tab-stop, which uses Emacs tab stops that you can set (see Tab Stops).

Text mode turns off the features concerned with comments except when you explicitly invoke them. It changes the syntax table so that periods are not considered part of a word, while apostrophes, backspaces and underlines are considered part of words.

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.

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.