Emacs org-mode
Welcome to the Emacs org-mode category.
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I am working on restoring some of my related posts from my old blog, so keep checking here for new content.
- I haven’t touched Elfeed in about a month
- I’ve been reading and interacting more with people’s posts than ever As I was looking at my Inkwell’s RSS feeds and cleaning up, I couldn’t help but notice how nice it looks:
- It creates a
datafolder (by default) inside the folder the org-file is in if it’s not there - It then gives the header (even if you don’t have one) a UUID (Universally Unique Identifier) and creates two more directories, one inside the other:
- The parent directory consists of the first part of the UUID
- The child directory consists of the rest of the UUID
- Lastly, the file itself will be copied into the child directory above.
brew uninstall emacs-plus@30brew cleanup(this removes dependencies, where I think the issue was)- Delete emacs.app and emacs-client.app from /Applications (I keep forgetting to do this)
brew install emacs-app(which is now emacs plus, from what I got through Homebrew)
Using Denote for Email: A manual workflow
As I started to write more emails to other bloggers, the annoyance with macOS' built-in email client grew. It wasn’t just the fact that it has small text that’s hard on the eyes especially on the harsh white background anymore; it just started to feel restricting.
Emacs is my natural writing environment for longer texts, like blog posts or the kind of emails I end up writing.
I’ve considered mu4e before, but setting it up seems a daunting overkill: the place I would benefit from mu4e is work, but I’m blocked by Microsoft-only 2FA authentication, so I have to stick with Outlook; meanwhile, for the three or so emails I write to other bloggers, it doesn’t require such heavy lifting.
One day about two weeks ago, I just fired up Denote, and suddenly it clicked. Denote, when you invoke it for a new note, asks for a directory - so I created an email directory in my parent Notes folder, and started writing. For a title, I use the subject, and the keyword is reserved for the recipient.
Now my eyes thank me again, as some of these emails can take an hour (and more even) to write. Links are a breeze to include, and quotes - which I use heavily in emails - are just a keyboard press away. It also looks nice when I go to the email directory and see all my drafts there, organized nicely as Denote knows how to do.
Since Denote doesn’t handle emails, for this I simply export the org file to HTML, and then with Dired (which opens in the same directory as the note I’m writing by default), I open the HTML file with my browser. From there, I copy-paste into Apple Mail, which acts as a proofread enhancer with Grammarly going to work there (this is something I’d miss if I were to use mu4e, though I could probably use Harper).
It’s a bit of a manual process, and I do need to delete the HTML files from the email directory every now and then, but for now it’s fine. It’s probably easy enough to create some shortcut that will open these HTML files directly with Mail instead of copy-pasting1 though.
Footnotes
1 Opening an HTML file with Dired with ! open -a Mail would make sense, but it opens Mail with the HTML file as an attachment, not as the body of the text.
Journelly and OSM for Emacs are good together
I mentioned OSM for emacs briefly before, but I haven’t played with it much. That’s because the maps never showed up correctly in the buffer: the map tiles were not aligned correctly and some appeared blank.
As it turns out, someone else had this problem and also found the culprit: visual-line-mode. I have it turned on by default as the majority of my work in Emacs involves org-mode and I need my lines wrapped in the buffer. With visual-line-mode disabled, OSM works as expected, including zooming in and out. Good stuff.
Now that I fixed OSM, I was wondering about something else I wanted to do for a while: having Journelly’s latitude and longitude fed automatically to OSM in Emacs, so I can view the location on a map.
Journelly captures locations and weather information for each note and stores those under properties, like so:
PROPERTIES:
:LATITUDE: ##.##########
:LONGITUDE: ##.##########
:WEATHER_TEMPERATURE: 62.1°F
:WEATHER_CONDITION: Cloudy
:WEATHER_SYMBOL: cloud
:END:
The OSM function that calls for those is osm-goto.
So what we need is a simple function to feed the properties values directly:
(defun jtr-goto-from-properties ()
(interactive)
(let ((lat (org-entry-get (point) "LATITUDE"))
(lon (org-entry-get (point) "LONGITUDE")))
(if (and lat lon)
(osm-goto (string-to-number lat) (string-to-number lon) osm-default-zoom)
(message "No LATITUDE/LONGITUDE properties found on this entry"))))
This is an interactive function that I use when I’m standing on the header in Journelly I want to see on a map. It’s quick and works well. Now I can use my Journelly entries, which are already in org-mode, as a base for a post with a map tile inside Emacs. OSM doesn’t have a native function to export an image, but since I usually want to annotate the image anyway before I make a post out of it, a regular screen-capture app is a good solution, at least for now.
I wrote about Harper before, but I wanted to expand now that I have it working on Kubuntu with a couple of more options.
Harper is good in two scenarios for me: first, when I want something quick and I don’t feel like starting a browser with Grammarly in it, and second, when I write a personal email and the idea of my words going to some AI grammar bot somewhere makes my skin crawl. Otherwise, for my blog (which is public anyway) and work email (I don’t care about those) Grammarly is definitely better.
The issue with Linux is that the makers of Harper geared it toward macOS (Homebrew) and Arch Linux, among other things. It was made for programmers by programmers, and these guys don’t bother with Ubuntu-like distros. Fair, but up until recently it meant I had to jump through hoops.
The quick and easy route in Ubuntu distros (which is what Kubuntu is) is to use snap. I know, I know. I didn’t want to either, but since the Harper makers don’t bother with flatpak, the other option was to install a Rust environment, which is a big overkill just for an app inside Emacs I use like once a month or so or less. I don’t like snap and I don’t use it, but I made an exception here.
Now, that snap “shortcut” is by a guy who works with Ubuntu (I think) and maintains his own package for it, so it’s on the edge channel (not stable) and seems to be a lot behind (version .49 to be exact, and Harper is currently 2.2.1!) so if Harper is your choice of grammar check, and you use it daily, I’d suggest against what I’m doing below. I’d install as needed in that case, Rust and all.
With that disclaimer, let’s move on: sudo snap install harper --edge.
Now in Emacs, in Linux, we want to tell it where harper is:
(when (eq system-type 'gnu/linux)
(add-to-list 'exec-path "/snap/harper/current/bin"))
When tells it to add the snap path only when running Linux, since I have the same config for both macOS and Linux.
That’s all… After that, I’ve added some of Harper’s flags, or linters. Here’s the whole code as I have it in my emacs org settings:
(with-eval-after-load 'eglot
(add-to-list 'eglot-server-programs
'(org-mode . ("harper-ls" "--stdio"))))
(setq-default eglot-workspace-configuration
'(:harper-ls (:dialect "American" :linters (:LongSentences :json-false :AvoidCurses :json-false))))
;; Besides choosing American as the language, I also want to ignore long sentences (the main issue is that it hides other errors nested in those) and I also want harper not to tell me when it thinks something is offensive. The full list of these options is in https://writewithharper.com/docs/rules. It needs to be nested inside the :linters option.
(when (eq system-type 'gnu/linux)
(add-to-list 'exec-path "/snap/harper/current/bin"))
;; on a mac, Harper is installed via Homebrew - on Kubuntu, the best option is snap - the harper team does not do a package (flatpak) unfortunately, and I don't want to install Rust just for harper. So.. meh. I did sudo 'snap install harper --edge' for this.
It's official: I prefer Inkwell over Elfeed
Last night I realized two things:
And, yes, I prefer it over my list of feeds in elfeed, which are stored in an .org file - essentially lines of text with comments and tags.
I’m pretty sure this is the opposite case for most folks who use Emacs. First, Emacs users want to use Emacs more, not less, and second, Inkwell is not available without Micro.blog1.
But I think this is the point I’m getting at: Inkwell belongs in Micro.blog; actually, it is Micro.blog.
When I started using Micro.blog three years ago, I considered it mostly an alternative to running my own static site with Hugo, between fixing issues with Hugo, my CSS, Netlify and understanding attempting to understand git and Magit. Yes, Micro.blog is an alternative to all of that, but it isn’t just a blogging platform; It’s a definition of a contemporary blogger.
If you look at Micro.blog’s set of tools, you’ll see what I mean: it contains tools to keep track and post about books, movies and TV shows, private (encrypted) notes, photos and self-made video clips2, save articles and qoutes from around the internet (pocket style), automatic integration with other social media where possible - all of this around your hosted blog, complete with plugins and a theme (and let’s not forget the AI integration, if you want it and turn it on) you can tweak and take with you - your posts, media, css, everything - wherever you go.
And Inkwell adds an important direction to this mix.
My blogging hour in the morning now continues where I left off the night before, with saved highlights and complete articles from other people I keep track of. The integration between Inkwell and Micro.blog, where my reading turns into writing, still requires some work as the UI and some of the bugs get sorted out, but it’s there. And it’s already better and more intuitive for me than Elfeed, which takes place in its own isolated space.
Elfeed is very good at what it does (and hopefully, what it will keep on doing, with its creator leaving Emacs), and it has been good to me. It still is. But Inkwell, Micro.blog, and my recent adventures with finding out more bloggers and learning more about the Indieweb feel like an evolution. It’s the next step of whatever I’m doing here.
Footnotes
1: I recall Manton borrowed the idea from a different RSS reader, but I can’t find the reference right now
2: Finding an alternative to YouTube these days is not easy, and if you’re not trying to “build a brand” and repeat the chant of “click and subscribe,” the only semi-reliable alternative that comes to mind is PeerTube and (maybe Dailymotion?) - but Manton found a way that seem sustainable, at least for now.
Yesterday morning, I imported an old-blog post of mine, which discusses org-id and UUIDs in org-mode. It’s a bit of a deep dive into how org-mode works. I find that I don’t do those as much anymore - probably because I mostly use Emacs “as is” with a few packages I use day to day, and my workflow has been pretty much the same (capture templates not included) for the last two years or so.
Display images with Org-attach and org-insert-link quickly and effectively
Suppose you have an org-mode file and want an image to appear in the buffer. The way to do that is to insert a link to the file, for example:
[[home/username/downloads/image.png]].
Then, you toggle inline images with C-c C-x C-v, and the image should display inside the org-mode buffer, provided the path in the link is correct. If you do this often in your notes as I do, you might as well just turn it on for the entire file with #+STARTUP: inlineimages at the top of your org file, with the rest of the options you have there; this way, images will always display when you load the file. This is all nice and good, and most of us org-mode users probably know that.
A common use case for a full workflow like this is attaching images to your org file. You have a file in your Downloads folder, as shown in the example above, and you want to keep the image with your org file where it belongs, rather than in Downloads, where it will be lost among other files sooner or later.
For this, as most of us know, we have org-attach (C-c C-a by default). This starts a wonderful organizational process for our files:
For example:
./data/acde070d/8c4c-4f0d-9d8a-162843c10333/someimage.png
If you’re not used to how org-attach works, it might take some time getting used to, but it’s worth it. Images (or any file, as we will deal with soon) are kept next to the files they are associated with. Of course, org-attach is customizable, and you can change those folders and UUIDs to make them less cryptic.
For example, my init includes this:
(setq org-id-method 'ts)
(setq org-attach-id-to-path-function-list
'(org-attach-id-ts-folder-format
org-attach-id-uuid-folder-format))
This tells org-mode to change the UUID to IOS date stamp format, so the folders under the data folder are dates, and tells org-mode to use that system (I wrote about this in length in my old blog; it is yet another post I need to bring over here it’s here now.).
In my case, this creates a file reference system by date: inside the data folder, each month of the year has a folder; inside those, a folder for the day and time (down to fractions of seconds) of the attachment. The beauty of org-attach is that you’re not meant to deal with the files directly. You summon the org-attach dispatcher and tell it to go to the relevant folder (C-c C-a to bring it up, then f as the option to go to that directory).
org-attach and displaying images inline are known to many org-mode users, but here comes the part I never realized:
org-attach stores the link to the file you just attached inside a variable called org-stored-link, along with other links you might have grabbed, like URLs from the web (take a look with C-h v org-stored-links). And, even better, these links are added to your org-insert-link, ready to go when you insert a link to your file with C-c C-l.
So when you have an image ready to attach to an org file, say in your Downloads folder, you could first attach it with org-attach, and then you can call it back quickly with C-c C-l. The trick is, since this is an image link (and not just any file), is not to give it a description. By default, org-mode will suggest you describe the link as the file you attached, but inline images do not work like that, and with a description, the image will just display as a file name. In other words:
A link to an image you want to display in the org buffer should look like:
[[file:/Home/username/downloads/someimage.jpg]]
But any other file would look like:
[[file:/Home/username/downloads/somefile.jpg][description]]
By deleting the suggestion, you are effectively creating the first case, the one that is meant to display images. This is explained nicely here.
There’s more to it. As it turns out, the variable org-attach-store-link-p is responsible for the links to these files to automatically be stored in org-insert-link (you can toggle it to change this option). This is why, when you use it, your files or images will show as [[attachment:description]], without the need for the path as specified above.
I have years of muscle memory to undo, as I’m used to manually inserting the links with the full path for my images. I did not realize the links to the images I’ve attached are right there, ready for me to place into the buffer if I only delete the description.
So emacs plus (through homebrew on macOS) keeps giving me this error: Invalid function: org-element-with-disabled-cache.
Does anyone know what this is about, and why it’s happening? No issue with Emacs on Linux (same config) or when I had emacsformacos (same config)
I believe I fixed it this morning (3/11) by removing Emacs-plus completely and reinstalling.
I also ran Brew Doctor between steps 2 and 3 and found a couple of issues I resolved, which shouldn’t be related, but you never know.
What started this whole thing, I think, was that I wanted to try the new org-mode on top of the old org-mode. I am not too sure, but it seems like that was the problem.
A new Emacs annoyance: org-capture: Capture abort: Invalid function: org-element-with-disabled-cache when I try to use org-capture. Fails the first time, works the second. Where did it come from and how do I get rid of it…?
Harp is org-mode medical app for Android
There’s the app for health-related records Irreal mentioned the other day, Harp. It’s an org-mode-centered app for Android (soon to be iOS though), which looks pretty basic at this point. You can create several profiles (for different people), and each one has a medical journal and documentation attached, along with some graphs as you accumulate data.
It’s a good idea to have an org-mode-based health app, with all the information you need available to you quickly, protected behind encryption. The issue specific to me is that even though I have a personal Android phone, it’s my iPhone that has my medical apps (part of the Epic suite), as this is the phone I usually carry around with me. These apps already have all my health records, doctors, appointment etc.
I’ve been playing with it a bit, and I think it’s mostly the idea of having my health records saved in org mode that makes sense, especially with the denote file convention system. My Android is also where I have signal, which I can use to share medical records with people close to me, so there’s that. It’s not ideal to carry around two phones, but I think I want to experiment for a bit.
I think I found what crashed my Emacs on macOS
For those of you following along, Emacs has been crashing on my Mac (but not on my Linux desktop) for a while, but it seemed too random to pinpoint. This led me into looking for the Darwin version in the Emacs build in Emacs for Mac OS (which was what I was using on my Mac), which was a couple of versions behind that of macOS itself.
I went ahead and attempted to use Emacs Plus from Homebrew, as most people commented. I haven’t noticed much of a difference, though personally I do prefer to use Emacs from Homebrew as I do with my other packages, so I stuck with it a bit longer.
Yesterday I encountered a stubborn crash in my journelly.org file. Journelly, which is basically a large org-file with pictures displayed in-line under some headers (you can get an idea of what Journelly is and how I use it here).
I took a picture of the snow outside with my iPhone using Journelly, which saved it to journelly.org with the image attached. On the Mac, every time I went to open the header, Emacs crashed, time after time. I just couldn’t edit that image. In a collapsed state for the header, where the image didn’t show, it was fine. On Linux, when I tried - fine. Oh, and before you ask - I tried this with emacs -Q, and yes, it crashed every single time as well.
The JPG image on my iPhone was a 7MB file with dimensions of 4284 x 5712. I knew from past experience that such large images slow down Emacs (on Linux too), so I shrunk it down to a 700kb file with dimensions of 604 x 640, and launched Emacs again. No problem. Everything was stable. I tried to load Emacs a few more times and it worked each time.
This was my hunch from the beginning - that something is up with images at least on the Mac, and this is proof enough for me. I don’t know exactly at what point Emacs crashes: is it a matter of how many images the org file has? How big are they? A combination of both? But I can tell you it seems to be more about the dimensions of the image in pixels than the file size. This is fine for me, for my journal, I don’t need large high-resolution images anyway; those are uploaded and displayed on my blog and elsewhere. It seems that some folks have encountered similar issues as well, from Reddit and elsewhere.
If you have similar issues and you’re fine with scaling down your images, a good solution is dwim-shell-commands-resize-image-in-pixels, part of the excellent dwim-shell-command package, which can quickly shrink down a large number of images from inside Emacs. I’m using it constantly.
Switched to emacs-plus to try it again for a few days. Darwin version is now up to date. Let’s see what the differences are, if there are indeed any - and of course, if things keep crashing.
Emacs for macOS and Darwin versions
Regarding to Emacs crashing: AI found that my Drawin version of Emacs might be the cause. I’ve been using Emacs for Mac OS which ran darwin21.6.0 - old… (current version on macOS is 25.3.0)
The question is, is this really the problem, or more like the AI making stuff up? It makes sense to me that an Emacs build is based on a slightly older Darwin version, though I’m not an expert. Another reason for this suspicion is that the AI assistant recommended emacs-plus without considering emacs for macOS. I know both are solid based on my own research, and I used Emacs-plus (available with Homebrew) for a while. I’ve been using Emacs for macOS for about a year, and it’s been fine until I believe I updated to the latest macOS, which everyone seems to hate, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it has to do with macOS 26 more than anything else.
For now, I installed the latest version of Emacs for macOS, which was built on darwin23.2 - still behind, but not as bad. If this is what’s running Emacs 30.2 for so many Mac users, it further confirms my suspicion that the Darwin version is not really the issue. But maybe I’m wrong.
I posted my question on Reddit to get some feedback, and out of curiosity, see what the Darwin version is for Emacs-plus (don’t want to install it right now). Guess we’ll see.
Lately, Emacs on my Mac has been crashing more frequently. I don’t know for sure what it is, and I can’t get much from the logs, but it seems to be somewhat related to images. Perhaps some memory issue.
My research has led me to suspect that perhaps emacs-plus from Homebrew would be better (I’ve been using Emacs for macOS), but I’m not quite sure yet.
Right now I’m too tired to tackle it, so I’m going to crawl to bed. I’ve been too tired and too busy in the evenings to do much of my personal projects, which sucks. Hope to get some stuff done this weekend, but it’s going to be a busy one.
Denote includes the option of adding different directories, so this now makes sense:
(setq denote-directory
(if (eq system-type 'gnu/linux) ; If I'm using Linux, include the private folder.
(list (expand-file-name "~/Sync/Notes")
(expand-file-name "~/Documents/private"))
(list (expand-file-name "~/Sync/Notes")))) ; If I'm using anything else (macOS) just Notes.
(setq denote-excluded-directories-regexp "data") ; the data folder (with attachments) is excluded.
I have a private folder for Denote notes on Linux only. I used to only sync my Sync/Notes folder, which includes my informational notes and blog posts, but that means I’m missing out on Denote’s abilities in my private folder, which is slowly increasing in size. This solves this problem.
There’s no need to list the data folder (which includes my attachments, mostly in file formats that are not Denote’s format), so that’s why the exclusion is there.
Org files to beatiful docx files with Pandoc
When it comes to sharing written documents with my co-workers, I usually need to use Word or PDFs. Org-mode includes an export option to odt files, which does the job in a pinch, but it’s a bit harder to customize, especially if I want to preserve certain formatting elements. In the past, I used to create ODT files, import them into Word, make whatever changes I needed, and save them in a docx file. The problem there, besides the manual work, is consistency. If I want to make sure I use the same style for fonts, header sizes, and table formats, things get annoying fast.
About a year ago, I discovered that Pandoc can use an external Word document (docx) as a style template. As long as I have this file accessible, every org file I convert to docx will automatically (and beautifully, I may add) retain the exact style changes I need. This, of course, can be automated later inside Emacs, so the export process is basically seamless.
The problem lies in the fact that you need to work with Word and understand how its styles. Readers of this blog know I love to complain about Microsoft’s UI and its lack of consistency, and the instructions here are one fine example in my opinion. Be it as it may, I will try to keep the snarky comments in check.
Creating the default style sheet
The first thing to do is get Pandoc to create its default style reference document as a .docx. This can be done with pandoc -o custom-reference.docx --print-default-data-file reference.docx.
What you’re telling Pandoc here is to output (-o) a file named custom-reference.docx (you can call it whatever you’d like, as long as it’s a docx, since you want to work with Word). What to output goes into this file? The default reference document.
Once you do that, you will have a custom-reference.docx in the folder you ran the command from.
Now it’s time to work inside Word.
Modifying the styles
What you will see is a rather plain file listing a bunch of styles and their name. First, you will see “Title,” and it will be nice and big because it’s using the Title style in Word. Heading 1 will use the Heading 1 style, Body Text (further down) will use the Body Text style, and so on.
What you want to do is to access these styles in Word. You will be modifying them to fit to your liking.
To do that, search for the Styles Pane. In my case, Office 365 for macOS, I can find it in the ribbon under Home, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s a little different if you’re using Windows, or a different version of Word.
With the Style Pane open, you will see a long list of the available styles. You can navigate this way, but I find it’s easier to just look for them in the document to the left and select them; it will then show under Current style: to the right.
Now that you have a style selected, select the name of that style from the Style Pane and choose Modify Style…1. You will see the options available to you, such as the font name, text color, alignment, etc.
Make sure that you do not change the Name: of the style! You’re modifying existing default styles that Pandoc recognizes; if you create a new one (by giving it a new name), Pandoc will not know what to do with it and will ignore it. Remember, you are modifying a reference sheet of existing styles, not creating new styles. Likewise, this means that you have no reason to change anything in the document itself (the content) - Pandoc doesn’t care about that and will ignore it. You’re only touching the options in the Modify Style… window.
That’s basically all there is to it. As you will see soon, some items can get a bit more complicated as they are not available in the same way. Save the files when you’re done modifying the styles. You will probably keep going back to this document as you export docx files, tweaking things until you like them.
Using Pandoc to export from org-mode to a docx file
The next step is to tell Pandoc to convert an existing org file to a docx file using the reference sheet we just worked on. To do that, use the following command:
pandoc -s <input_file.org> -o <output_file.docx> --reference-doc custom-reference.docx.
The idea is the same as before, but we use a stationary option, -s (the reason for that is that we’re telling Pandoc to use a “full” version of a document, needed with the reference doc option, otherwise it can’t use our reference document).
Then, we’re pointing Pandoc to our org file and using the output, -o, as the doc file we want, then finally using the reference-doc option by utilizing our reference file, custom-reference.docx (unless you change the name to something else). That’s it, Pandoc will create the file in the folder you are in.
Images and Tables
For me, things get a bit more complicated. My technical documents often include screenshots, and I need those embedded in the resulting Word docx file.
The above command will embed images in the Word document, as long as org-mode can find and display your images (using the inlineimages option in org-mode). My org-mode technical notes are all written with Denote these days, which keeps everything organized, including the images, which are inside the default data subfolder. If your workflow is different, be mindful of your path to the images; you’d probably want to use an absolute path in org-mode (use C-u C-u C-c C-l when linking an image instead of the usual C-u C-c C-l for this). There’s also the option to extract media in Pandoc (see the –extract-media option). In my opinion, it’s simpler and cleaner to dedicate a folder for your org documents, completed with a subfolder for attachments.
Another issue that stumbled me was the tables.
Pandoc’s default style for tables is minimal - without borders. This might look nice if you want to hide your tables, but if you need a table with borders and perhaps some shading, you’ll run into issues.
The problem is with Word. The style for the table is not included in the Style Pane. In order to change the style for your table in the reference doc, you need to locate Table Design in your ribbon. Notice that if you work on a small screen (like in my recording), you might have to expand your options to find it. Then, you will have to extend the pane further and locate the Modify Table Style below. Once again, this is true for my case, Office 365 on macOS. If you’re using a different Office version or on Windows, this menu might be located elsewhere.
Once you have Modify Table Style open, you can change the borders and shading to your heart’s content, but as before, make sure the style name remains Table. If you create a new style, Pandoc will ignore it.
A few tricks I picked up
Under the name of the style, in the Modify Style or Modify Table Style window, you will see the Style based on option. You can change this option and browse through different colors and fonts to find something you like, and then customize further instead of starting from scratch. As long as you don’t change the name of the style, you’re OK. I found this useful when working with tables, as I was looking for a table with shading on every other row.
Speaking of tables, the border button is the little square icon in the middle. I spent a few moments trying to find it.
Bonus: use dwim-shell-command for quick export
If you’re an Emacs user, you like shortcuts, and you like to use shell commands from within Emacs. If you haven’t yet, check out dwim-shell-command.
Here’s how I have it set up. All I have to do is mark the org file(s) I want to convert to a docx, and that’s it. It doesn’t matter if I want to export only one file or fifty; it’s the same ease of use.
(defun jtr/dwim-shell-command-pandoc-org-to-docx ()
"uses pandoc to convert an org file to docx using a template docx file. The docx template file is stored in my Notes sync folder"
(interactive)
(dwim-shell-command-on-marked-files
"converting from org to docx"
"pandoc -s '<<f>>' -o '<<fne>>.docx' --reference-doc ~/Sync/Notes/Info/custom-reference.docx"
:utils "pandoc"))
Footnotes
1 : Or, another way to work is to use to select the text you want to modify, then go to Format and select Style from there; you will need to then choose Modify in the window that shows.
A bit of a teaser:
This bit of dwim-shell-command magic works nicely:
(defun jtr/dwim-shell-command-pandoc-org-to-docx ()
"uses pandoc to convert an org file to docx using a template docx file. The docx template file is stored in my synced notes folder"
(interactive)
(dwim-shell-command-on-marked-files
"converting from org to docx"
"pandoc -s '<<f>>' -o '<<fne>>.docx' --reference-doc ~/Sync/Notes/custom-reference.docx"
:utils "pandoc"))
Why I use Denote?
When I mentioned Denote again a couple of days ago, Omar commented that whenever someone mentions using Denote or org-roam, he’s curious to know if that person tried vanilla org-mode first, without additional packages.
I get it. After all, I’ve been resisting the whole Zettelkasten bandwagon and org-roam with it for a while, keeping the same opinion about org-roam Omar seems to have about Denote (I’m speculating here, of course). In general, I don’t like the idea of Doom Emacs or Spacemacs for the same reasons. Denote, for some reason, never registered this way. I liked it from day one.
As I was answering his question and he asked for more details, I thought it might make a good post. So here we are.
Not a whole lot changed for me since I first looked into Denote. I still mostly use it for my blog posts (like the one you’re reading right now) and my info notes, which mostly contain technical how-tos to myself and to a lesser degree, some records and memos, like a list of equipment in my home or who’s who at work. At this point, I also have a third, personal folder with notes only on my Linux computer as well, which mostly contain “supplemental” notes as I call them to journal entries I want to expand on in private (I use my work iPhone with Journelly, which does a fantastic job, but I don’t trust Apple or any cloud service for that matter with my private stuff).
It has been slow progress, but I’ve improved my usability with Denote, which I recently enhanced further after having the pleasure of talking to Prot 1:1 in one of his online tutoring sessions (always a pleasure, and highly recommended if you ask me).
The main philosophy behind Denote is something I’ve been in agreement with for a long time, before I started using it, or Emacs, or even got familiar with Linux: the idea of how to date and rename files. I’ve never agreed with the American way of writing dates, and I always prefer the ISO format: yyyymmdd followed by hhmm. To me, this is how things should be organized. So when Denote came around with Prot explaining that this is how he sees files should be organized - date, followed by keywords, and then a title - it just clicked.
You can extend this file-naming scheme to all your personal files if you’d like (at least all the files you visit with Dired), and I’m in the process of doing exactly that. Because the renaming function is built into Denote, it’s easy to stay concise and avoid mistakes (for example, renaming one file 20260124 something, and then another 2026124, emitting the 0 for January). While it’s true you could easily do that without Denote, to me, this core piece was like a sign that said, “Hey, look at this, this guy is building a package that is based on something that makes sense, check it out.”
Tags are another important part of Denote. Org-mode has tags built into headers, which works, but the headers, to me, are a bit too specific to need them. For the most part, I can get the level of information I need through the header itself, and I use tags to associate a certain header with a person - but even that is not useful, as I often work with too many people for the tags to really mean anything. Meanwhile, it’s the files themselves that need tags: certain workflows are similar, but are tagged to work for different operating systems (say, how to set my work VPN on Linux vs on my Mac), or maybe I have a naming convention for different departments at work, and I want to tag the relevant departments.
I didn’t always break my different workflows and notes into files. In the past, I had one org file as a wiki: a single file with many headers explaining workflows and procedures. I often had errors there. It was one big file that I often opened and edited, so I had syncing issues, headers that got mixed up, etc. The other problem I had with the wiki was logical: at times, a certain subheader would fit under two different headers, and I would have a hard time deciding where to place something. Headers work as categories, while tags work as ,well, tags. If we take the VPN example from before, I could put my VPN instructions under “networking,” “security,” or “remote work,” but not all. I don’t have this problem with Denote.
Another, more recent skill I started using with Denote is its metadata and search features. Meta notes work as an index of other files, where I can have one file with a dynamic list (updated whenever the file is loaded) of live links to other files with the same tag or other regex I use. Meanwhile, searching with Denote using denote-grep (something I learned recently) shows a list of all the files matching my search in collapsible form, making it easy to find what I need. I can use one of many denote-query forms to filter those results even further, and of course, there’s denote-consult, which, well, if you know consult, you know what it does, and it’s excellent.
Finding stuff is a central issue for anyone keeping notes, no matter what system they use. Denote supplies me with the best tools I’ve seen for this job. It’s true that many of these tools are already available in Emacs and in org-mode. Denote doesn’t alter these existing options; rather, it builds on them. In fact, that’s a big part of Denote: the way its commands are constructed borrows from what Emacs already does, so if you’re familiar with one, you intuitively know what the same thing would do inside Denote.
Another example of the above is the org files you create with Denote. You can use Denote directly with a capture template, and each file is created with file tags that make sense if you use org-mode: #-title, #+date and #+filetags, which denote changes automatically as you rename files with it. These work together with additional options I include in my notes, such as #+STARTUP: inlineimages. In a Markdown export, such as this very post you’re reading now, Emacs knows to ignore these org-mode only options, so I don’t need to clean them out when I’m ready to post. It’s a nice touch that already exists in vanilla org-mode, but with the added benefits of Denote, like having my post tagged, dated, and easily found in a search alongside the rest of my Denote files in the future.
There are definitely more features of Denote I don’t use, or use enough (blacklinks, which I believe are more of a recent introduction, is one of them), but as I stated above, this is a process. I learn more every week, and as my notes collection increases, so does my understanding of how to use Denote in a way that works for me.
Spent the last day and a half on and off figuring out how to use pandoc to make my org-mode files in pretty, readable docx files, including tables. It was a challenge, but it’s worth it. The key is to use a reference doc and to know how to use it. Need to expend on that.
Reflection on my Emacs experience
A couple of days ago I found out org-mode capture sun menus can handle additional nested menus. To recap quickly here (see more details in the link), this means that you’d have the main menu for capture templates, which will lead to additional templates menus, and that menu can keep leading to more and more menus. I am not sure how many levels of these templates we can have, but “more than enough” is a good enough answer for me.
As I was writing the post above, I went back to my old blog and reviewed two of my older, Emacs-usage-defining posts, and added them to this blog: Org-mode in files and Submenus in org-mode capture.
Those of you who enjoy reading about the Emacs experience from a user perspective (especially someone who started out without a programming background) might want to give those a read, in the order mentioned above. Beyond explaining these crucial org-mode methods (and in my opinion, crucial to use Emacs in general), these describe the struggle and the learning process of, well, how to Emacs correctly: from realizing an option exists (of course it exists, it’s Emacs), through asking the right questions, to finding the information and implementing the solution.
I’ve spent a couple of hours re-reading and revising these posts, and reached a conclusion that many of you who are reading this over their RSS feed in Emacs would probably agree with. We, Emacs users who blog, have a critical role in the Emacs ecosystem: we provide others with ideas and questions to ask, which can later be directed to official channels, the manual, and brainstorming answers.
As I mentioned a couple of times throughout the lifetime of my blog (this one and the old one): Emacs is not just a program, it’s a lifestyle.
org-mode capture: menu inside a menu
Over the weekend, I modified my org-capture templates again. I was curious to see if I could create a second-level menu in org-mode capture under my already existing menu items - and as it turns out, it’s possible, and also pretty straightforward. Here’s the start of the setting (keep in mind it’s not complete, don’t just copy-paste this):
(setq org-capture-templates
(quote (
("w" "work")
("wt" "work-ticket")
("wta" "work-ticket department A" entry
(file "~/Sync/Work/department A.org") (file "~/Sync/Templates/temp-ticket.org"):prepend t)
This will result in the following:
Select a capture template
===========================
[w]... work...
then:
Select a capture template
===========================
[wt]... work ticket...
then:
Select a capture template
===========================
[wta] work-ticket department A
I should explain this further, probably first explaining why I need such a complicated system of menus within menus, but every time I sit down to explain I run out of time. I wanted to put it out there first, and I’ll come around to explain it soon, hopefully.