12 Making Emacs Work the Way You Want

We’re going to tell you how to give Emacs the to-do list, a list of options to turn on each time you enter Emacs;

These options are defined in an initialization file called .emacs;

Initialization files run automatically.;

Some run when you start up your computer;

Others, like .emacs, run when you start up an associated software program;

So .emacs runs automatically when you start Emacs and turns on whatever options the file defines;

Emacs doesn’t need this file to run;

its only purpose is to make Emacs work the way you want it to.