A book that provides a big picture view of the Emacs Lisp programming language by combining prose with code. The goal is to give readers an idea of how Elisp works by showing some of the main concepts or patterns discernible in everyday code.
Some chapters are beginner-friendly, while others dive into deeper waters. Though I think everything is still approachable, as I try to explain basic concepts and take things one step at a time.
The book is not meant to be a replacement for the built-in Emacs Lisp Reference Manual. It simply gives you enough information to reason about Elisp. Once you start extending Emacs, the rest will follow naturally.
I hope you enjoy it and continue to have fun with Emacs.
- Official page: https://protesilaos.com/emacs/emacs-lisp-elements
- Git repository: https://github.com/protesilaos/emacs-lisp-elements
Once you clone the Git repository, use M-x dired to open its directory.
With the cursor over elispelem.info do M-x dired-do-info.
If you wish to make changes, please limit them to typos or actual
errors (e.g. if a function name is wrong). Make all changes to the
file elispelem.org: I will then take care to export it to the other
formats.
How I create the other files: https://protesilaos.com/codelog/2025-12-27-emacs-lisp-elements-epub-pdf/.