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4.2 Lesson 1: read and locate point ¶

Emacs calls the editing position point. Movement changes point and Emacsvox speaks what you reach. Short inspections, such as reading a line or character, leave point in place. Learning that distinction makes it easier to recover when speech is interrupted or you are unsure where the next edit will occur.

1. In the practice buffer, press M-<, then C-n. You reach the line about the green notebook and hear its text.
2. Press C-e l twice. Each invocation reads that line again without moving point. Now press C-n: you reach the sentence about being ready, not a line farther down because of the repeated reading.
3. Press C-p to return to the notebook line, then C-a to reach its start. C-e c reads the character at point. Use C-f to move one character forward and C-b to move back. Point moves only with the movement commands.
4. Press C-e b to start reading the buffer and C-e s to stop that speech. Then press C-e l. It still works: stopping an utterance has not switched speech off or closed the document.

This small-buffer exercise uses C-e b, which leaves point in place. Tracked reading with C-e i is different: on a supporting speech server it advances point by chunks. Stopping leaves a chunk boundary, not necessarily the exact word last heard. See Read from point, stop, and start again when you are ready for longer reading; it is not required for this exercise.

The exact voice and pronunciation depend on your current settings. Check the text you reached, not whether your system sounds like someone else’s. C-e m identifies the buffer and mode whenever your context is unclear.

If M-< is intercepted by your desktop or screen reader, run M-x beginning-of-buffer RET instead. This is an Emacs command, not a requirement to change screen-reader configuration.

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