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> assuming some comfort with emacs is presumably OK in a manual for the software!

How do you get familiar with the software, if the manual expects you to be an expert in it already?

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I got familiar with vi by reading a book that had the main vi commands listed out. First learnt how to quit without saving changes, the rest was just practice.
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Not sure if it did at the time, but today emacs comes with a tutorial. You’re not expected to learn it by starting on page 1 of the manual.
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Why not? I expect to learn how to use a software by reading its manual.
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Surely you can still do that, but starting with the tutorial will be easier and more efficient.
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By reading introductory material.
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The example confusingly includes some weird markup. It's just saying press `ESC-?` then type "window" to search for window commands. These isn't even valid in modern Emacs. The equivalent is `C-h` followed by `a` then type "window".
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