Add line numbers to GNU Emacs

Question

How can I add line numbers to Emacs?

Please explain, I'm an absolute beginner.

geekosaur · Accepted Answer · 2011-05-06T19:48:01.077

27

If you're running it in default mode, it's in the menu: Options > Show/Hide > Line Numbers. Then Options > Save Options to save it for future sessions.

If you're running it in a terminal (emacs -nw), then it's M-x line-number-mode. M- is usually the Windows key, but may be Alt, or you can press Esc followed by x.

(Edit: The above only affects the mode line. For line numbers in the margin, you want M-x linum-mode, or more likely (setq global-linum-mode t) in your ~/.emacs.)

edited May 06 '11 at 19:48

answered May 06 '11 at 18:53

geekosaur

11,597

2

That only displays the current line number in the mode line – Florian Diesch May 06 '11 at 19:44
@Florian: Good catch. I added the instructions for linum-mode to the answer. – geekosaur May 06 '11 at 19:48
Ok, you've been faster - deleted my answer – Florian Diesch May 06 '11 at 19:55
9

(setq global-linum-mode t) is not working when I add this line to .emacs.d/init.el, I just change it to(global-linum-mode t) and it works. Any reasons why? – ZijunLost Dec 28 '15 at 02:15

score 21 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 27 '16 at 20:53

21

Add (global-linum-mode t) to ~/.emacs.d/init.el

answered Nov 27 '16 at 20:53

Saeed Zarinfam

17,392

1

This worked for me. Heads up for Windows users - this file is located in C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming directory, and is called ".emacs". Just add (global-linum-mode t) at the end of the file. – Kirill Yunussov Oct 01 '17 at 16:24
Could also be in the "C:\Users\username" directory – Kirill Yunussov Oct 02 '17 at 12:49
how do you add a space between the line number and the text? because adding just (global-linum-mode t) shows the line numbers and the text without spaces. – m4l490n Jan 18 '18 at 08:02

Add line numbers to GNU Emacs

2 Answers2