Re: Calling external programs in emacs

[James K. Lowden]

On Fri, 13 Jan 2017 18:53:42 +0000 (UTC)
Sam Nirvana <samnirvana@linux.org> wrote:

> I'm new to emacs, so forgive my inexperience.
> 
> As you know, with Vim I can compile, say, a TeX file from within the 
> editor with the following command:
> 
>       :!pdftex %
> 
> Is there a way to do the same thing with emacs?

The emacs function you want is called shell-function.  It's usually
mapped to M-! (meta-bang).  You can verify that with either 

        C-h f shell-function
or
        C-h k M-!

To run asynchronously, see async-shell-function, usually M-&.  

HTH.  

--jkl