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Emacs Tip #4 -- Easy Region (Selection) Highlighting

One of the aspects of emacs that often confuses newcomers (and sometimes even exerts) is the lack of highlighting of the region (selection). After you hit C-space to set the mark, when you move the point the region is not highlighted.

Starting in Emacs 22 the fix is simple. Whenever you want to see the region during a selection operation, simply hit C-space twice when you set the mark. This temporarily enables region highlighting ("transient mark mode").

To make this change permanent, go to Options/Active Region Highlighting. This will let you toggle this feature on or off for all buffers and sessions.

Last modified on 28 Apr 2009 by AO