Get emacs to automatically insert \end{} commands after a \begin{} command

Question

I've recently switched from Kile to Emacs/AUCTeX for LaTeX editing. I like AUCTeX a lot more in general, in part because I've put a lot of effort into learning Emacs really well. One feature I really miss from Kile is that it will automatically insert an \end{environment} whenever I enter a begin{environment}. Since I'm going into and out of equations a lot, this saves me a lot of typing.

Is there a way to get emacs to automatically insert \end{} whenever I type a \begin{}, the way kile does?

Answer 1

AUCTeX has autocompletion mechanisms different from most of the other LaTeX editors. In Emacs, when TeX-latex-mode is activated, the sequence Ctrl-c Ctrl-e (the - means that the second key has to be pressed while holding the first, while the space implies the release of both keys before the next combination) opens the mini-buffer dialog interface at the bottom of the page where one types the name of the environment desired. Press enter and Emacs then automatically inserts both \begin{} and \end{} tags and places the pointer in the line between said tags, usually even adding proper indentation. AUCTeX keeps the history of environments inserted in this way, so you can recall a recently inserted environment using the up and down arrow keys. In addition, the last inserted environment will be used by default, so if you insert an environment very often you don't need to type anything at all.

Moreover, as mentioned by @daleif, you can change the current environment with Ctrl-u Ctrl-c Ctrl-e and insert an \end{...} matching the last open \begin{...} with Ctrl-c ].

More in depth information can be found at the official project page.

Please note that in the documentation a non-conventional symbolism is used: e.g., C stands for Ctrl, RET for the enter (return) button, M for the diamond shaped Meta key in old keyboards (but alt does the job allright), etc.

Answer 2

If you are editing a file with .tex extension, then emacs should automatically enter latex-mode (you will see (LaTeX) in the status bar).

In this mode, C-c C-o calls latex-insert-block which will prompt for the block name and arguments, with history and automatic name suggestion. This will insert both the beginning and end commands.

If you already typed the beginning command, C-c C-e ends the block calling latex-close-block.

You can check all features of latex-mode by pressing F1 m while editing a LaTeX file.

Other features include directly compiling from the buffer with C-c C-f, or checking for inconsistencies.

Doc here: http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/TeX-Mode.html