The Compact Org Mode Guide

This book is a compressed derivative of the comprehensive Org-mode manual. It contains all basic features and commands, along with important hints for customization. It is intended for beginners who would shy back from a 300 page manual because of sheer size. See ISBN 9781680922813 for the full manual.

Org is a mode for keeping notes, maintaining TODO lists, and project planning with a fast and effective plain-text system. It also is an authoring system with unique support for literate programming and reproducible research.

Org is implemented on top of Outline mode, which makes it possible to keep the content of large files well structured. Visibility cycling and structure editing help to work with the tree. Tables are easily created with a built-in table editor. Plain text URL-like links connect to websites, emails, Usenet messages, BBDB entries, and any files related to the projects.

Org develops organizational tasks around notes files that contain lists or information about projects as plain text. Project planning and task management makes use of metadata which is part of an outline node. Based on this data, specific entries can be extracted in queries and create dynamic agenda views that also integrate the Emacs calendar and diary. Org can be used to implement many different project planning schemes, such as David Allen's GTD system.