Emacs Lisp Basics
This page is a short, practical, tutorial of Emacs Lisp the language.
To evaluate elisp code, for example, type (+ 3 4)
, then move your cursor to after the closing parenthesis, then
Alt + x eval-last-sexp
Or, select the lisp code, then Alt + x eval-region
.
[see Evaluate Emacs Lisp Code]

To find the doc string of a function, Alt + x describe-function
then type the function name.
[see Documentation Lookup]
To turn on syntax highlight,
Alt + x emacs-lisp-mode
.
Working with Lisp in Emacs
After you read this chapter, check out the following to learn how to efficiently work with lisp in emacs.
Printing
; printing (message "hi") ; printing variable values (message "Her age is: %d" 16) ; %d is for number (message "Her name is: %s" "Vicky") ; %s is for string (message "My list is: %S" (list 8 2 3)) ; %S is for any lisp expression
You can see the output in the Messages Buffer.
[see Print, Output]
[see Format String]