When you edit files of text in a human language, it's more convenient to use Text mode rather than Fundamental mode. To enter Text mode, type M-x text-mode.
In Text mode, only blank lines and page delimiters separate paragraphs. As a result, paragraphs can be indented, and adaptive filling determines what indentation to use when filling a paragraph. See section Adaptive Filling.
Text mode defines TAB to run indent-relative
(see section Indentation), so that you can conveniently indent a line like
the previous line. When the previous line is not indented,
indent-relative runs tab-to-tab-stop, which uses Emacs tab
stops that you can set (see section Tab Stops).
Text mode turns off the features concerned with comments except when you explicitly invoke them. It changes the syntax table so that periods are not considered part of a word, while apostrophes, backspaces and underlines are considered part of words.
If you indent the first lines of paragraphs, then you should use Paragraph-Indent Text mode rather than Text mode. In this mode, you do not need to have blank lines between paragraphs, because the first-line indentation is sufficient to start a paragraph; however paragraphs in which every line is indented are not supported. Use M-x paragraph-indent-text-mode to enter this mode.
Text mode, and all the modes based on it, define M-TAB as
the command ispell-complete-word, which performs completion of
the partial word in the buffer before point, using the spelling
dictionary as the space of possible words. See section Checking and Correcting Spelling.
Entering Text mode runs the hook text-mode-hook. Other major
modes related to Text mode also run this hook, followed by hooks of
their own; this includes Paragraph-Indent Text mode, Nroff mode, TeX
mode, Outline mode, and Mail mode. Hook functions on
text-mode-hook can look at the value of major-mode to see
which of these modes is actually being entered. See section Hooks.
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