(emacs.info) Fill Prefix

 
 The Fill Prefix
 ---------------
 
    To fill a paragraph in which each line starts with a special marker
 (which might be a few spaces, giving an indented paragraph), you can use
 the "fill prefix" feature.  The fill prefix is a string that Emacs
 expects every line to start with, and which is not included in filling.
 You can specify a fill prefix explicitly; Emacs can also deduce the
 fill prefix automatically ( Adaptive Fill).
 
 `C-x .'
      Set the fill prefix (`set-fill-prefix').
 
 `M-q'
      Fill a paragraph using current fill prefix (`fill-paragraph').
 
 `M-x fill-individual-paragraphs'
      Fill the region, considering each change of indentation as
      starting a new paragraph.
 
 `M-x fill-nonuniform-paragraphs'
      Fill the region, considering only paragraph-separator lines as
      starting a new paragraph.
 
    To specify a fill prefix, move to a line that starts with the desired
 prefix, put point at the end of the prefix, and give the command
 `C-x .' (`set-fill-prefix').  That's a period after the `C-x'.  To turn
 off the fill prefix, specify an empty prefix: type `C-x .' with point
 at the beginning of a line.
 
    When a fill prefix is in effect, the fill commands remove the fill
 prefix from each line before filling and insert it on each line after
 filling.  Auto Fill mode also inserts the fill prefix automatically when
 it makes a new line.  The `C-o' command inserts the fill prefix on new
 lines it creates, when you use it at the beginning of a line (
 Blank Lines).  Conversely, the command `M-^' deletes the prefix (if
 it occurs) after the newline that it deletes ( Indentation).
 
    For example, if `fill-column' is 40 and you set the fill prefix to
 `;; ', then `M-q' in the following text
 
      ;; This is an
      ;; example of a paragraph
      ;; inside a Lisp-style comment.
 
 produces this:
 
      ;; This is an example of a paragraph
      ;; inside a Lisp-style comment.
 
    Lines that do not start with the fill prefix are considered to start
 paragraphs, both in `M-q' and the paragraph commands; this gives good
 results for paragraphs with hanging indentation (every line indented
 except the first one).  Lines which are blank or indented once the
 prefix is removed also separate or start paragraphs; this is what you
 want if you are writing multi-paragraph comments with a comment
 delimiter on each line.
 
    You can use `M-x fill-individual-paragraphs' to set the fill prefix
 for each paragraph automatically.  This command divides the region into
 paragraphs, treating every change in the amount of indentation as the
 start of a new paragraph, and fills each of these paragraphs.  Thus,
 all the lines in one "paragraph" have the same amount of indentation.
 That indentation serves as the fill prefix for that paragraph.
 
    `M-x fill-nonuniform-paragraphs' is a similar command that divides
 the region into paragraphs in a different way.  It considers only
 paragraph-separating lines (as defined by `paragraph-separate') as
 starting a new paragraph.  Since this means that the lines of one
 paragraph may have different amounts of indentation, the fill prefix
 used is the smallest amount of indentation of any of the lines of the
 paragraph.  This gives good results with styles that indent a
 paragraph's first line more or less that the rest of the paragraph.
 
    The fill prefix is stored in the variable `fill-prefix'.  Its value
 is a string, or `nil' when there is no fill prefix.  This is a
 per-buffer variable; altering the variable affects only the current
 buffer, but there is a default value which you can change as well.
  Locals.
 
    The `indentation' text property provides another way to control the
 amount of indentation paragraphs receive.   Format Indentation.
Info Catalog
(emacs.info) Fill Commands
(emacs.info) Filling
(emacs.info) Adaptive Fill
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