Org mode

Long-term owners

I've been using org[0] for the past 10 years to store knowledge, project write-ups, notes, etc and love it.

Jul 2026 · comment

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Every quote

The 40 most detailed of 320 comments. Each links to the original.

1. there is also org-mode: the agenda tracker, org-mode: the literate programming system, org-mode: the spreadsheet, org-mode: the website publishing system

   Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Org Mode Syntax Is One of the Most Reasonable Markup Languages to Use for Text”

2. Org-mode is a extremely lightweight, likely more so than md, AND allows for complex levels of processing WHILE maintaining that lightweightedness.

   Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Org Mode Syntax Is One of the Most Reasonable Markup Languages to Use for Text”

3. There are so many things built into org-mode and so many tools built around org-mode that you'll be able to find something that feels comfortable.

   Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Org Mode Syntax Is One of the Most Reasonable Markup Languages to Use for Text”

4. I steer clear of its complicated html-compiling functions, as I have a hard time remembering all the different options and keybindings.

   Mixed · Oct 2026 · in “Blogging with Gleam, Org-Mode and Pandoc”

5. What's cool about Org isn't the symbols, but the semantics of a tree with tags, TODOs (along agenda & scheduling), and code blocks.

   Mixed · Jan 2026 · in “Org Mode Syntax Is One of the Most Reasonable Markup Languages to Use for Text”

6. org-mode is a way more powerful literate programming environment which can be exported to many different formats including markdown

   Recommends · Aug 2026 · in “Emacs 31: An unofficial guide to Markdown-ts-mode”

7. Org syntax's ability to serve for all the things Markdown currently does, while being more consistent and concise than Markdown

   Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Org Mode Syntax Is One of the Most Reasonable Markup Languages to Use for Text”

8. I don’t think anyone who gets really familiar with org can ever honestly say with a straight face that Markdown is adequate

   Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Org Mode Syntax Is One of the Most Reasonable Markup Languages to Use for Text”

9. My university project was written using an unholy combination of org-mode & some workflow to create a beautiful LaTeX file

   Mixed · May 2026 · in “The Emacsification of Software”

10. Org-mode's plain-text outlining, agenda management, and workflow structure are still hard to fully replace anywhere else.

    Recommends · Sep 2026 · in “Ask HN: Do you keep Emacs installed out of nostalgia rather than usefulness?”

11. org mode have TODO items, checklists, tables (including spreadsheet functionality), code blocks, tagging/properties.

    Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “Even More Batteries Included with Emacs”

12. a thriving note taking ecosystem based on Org-mode, a plaintext system for notes, documents, computational notebooks

    Recommends · Feb 2026 · in “Customer Update on Simplenote”

13. simply being able to change an item in my org-mode file from "TODO" to "DONE" has mostly taken away that feeling

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Reading Without Limits or Expectations”

14. Expressing complex HTML or LaTeX constructs in org-mode is more complicated than writing the raw HTML or LaTeX.

    Mixed · Jan 2026 · in “Org Mode Syntax Is One of the Most Reasonable Markup Languages to Use for Text”

15. I find that with org-mode and extensions (such as in-line elisp) I have a _significantly_ more powerful system.

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “Using Claude Code: The Unreasonable Effectiveness of HTML”

16. I like Org-mode because it's easy enough to write, looks nice enough, can be exported in quite a few formats

    Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “Markdown is holding you back”

17. Org-mode is the superior universal markup for, well everything, only downside is the default editor.

    Recommends · Apr 2026 · in “Quarkdown – Markdown with Superpowers”

18. programs structured in these notebooks really are perfectly situated for LLM analysis and extension

    Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “We should revisit literate programming in the agent era”

19. now you can write markdown or org-mode (or orgdown) and generate LaTeX -> PDF via pandoc/org-mode

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Prism”

20. the best tool that qualifies for proper literate programming is probably org-mode with org-babel

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “What is “literate programming”? (2024)”

21. What I also like is, that you can define code blocks that are used as formulas for spreadsheets

    Mixed · Jan 2026 · in “Org Mode Syntax Is One of the Most Reasonable Markup Languages to Use for Text”

22. You're right that Org adds features but it also shrinks the pool of people who will try this.

    Mixed · Aug 2026 · in “textlog – A quiet, text-only microblogging platform”

23. Outside of Emacs, yes. Within Emacs, there's a keybinding to paste a tree and have it fit.

    Mixed · Apr 2026 · in “Why the heck are we still using Markdown?”

24. so tightly bound that it would be as well to simply embed Emacs in an application rather than extract org mode from it

    Criticizes · Jan 2026 · in “Org Mode Syntax Is One of the Most Reasonable Markup Languages to Use for Text”

25. org-mode files weren't fully native Markdown files, which caused annoying friction when collaborating with others

    Criticizes · Aug 2026 · in “Emacs 31: An unofficial guide to Markdown-ts-mode”

26. The only spec is a single implementation. Which is probably why approximately nothing else supports it.

    Criticizes · Jan 2026 · in “Org Mode Syntax Is One of the Most Reasonable Markup Languages to Use for Text”

27. it'd be masochistic to put up with that unless you've invested a lot into Org for other reasons

    Criticizes · Jan 2026 · in “Org Mode Syntax Is One of the Most Reasonable Markup Languages to Use for Text”

28. each "completely trivial" step adds complexity to the overall process, which makes it brittle

    Criticizes · Jan 2026 · in “Org Mode Syntax Is One of the Most Reasonable Markup Languages to Use for Text”

29. I don’t like using “-“ for bullets and “*” for headings. I do love underlines for underlined text, slash for italics, and asterisks for bold.

    Mixed · Jan 2026 · in “Org Mode Syntax Is One of the Most Reasonable Markup Languages to Use for Text”

30. I am familiar with org mode but dislike how it sometimes pushes against simply using elisp for things like setting up todo nodes

    Mixed · Aug 2026 · in “Emacs 31: An unofficial guide to Markdown-ts-mode”

31. if you wanna see what a symbiotic relationship between GUIs x TUIs could look like you need to see what Emacs does with Orgmode

    Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “strace-ui, Bonsai_term, and the TUI renaissance”

32. It's been so important for me to have a system that enables me to make notes, todos etc. with extremely low friction.

    Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “How I am deeply integrating Emacs”

33. Much as I love org-mode tables, I'd say the only axis where an org table is more feature rich is the formula support.

    Mixed · Nov 2025 · in “VisiData – open-source spreadsheet for the terminal”

34. The most seamless capture-from-anywhere workflow I struck upon is to have a shortcut on my phone's home screen.

    Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “How I am deeply integrating Emacs”

35. The power of Org mode and some of the other tools in Emacs comes from being integrated into the rest of Emacs

    Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “IDEmacs: A Visual Studio Code clone for Emacs”

36. If it's gotten this far WITHOUT a spec, there's something inherently good going on that lets it keep going.

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Org Mode Syntax Is One of the Most Reasonable Markup Languages to Use for Text”

37. I've been using org[0] for the past 10 years to store knowledge, project write-ups, notes, etc and love it.

    Recommends · Jul 2026 · in “Knowledge Should Not Be Gated”

38. I love Org-mode and use it for many things - the outline format is great, even for some unexpected cases

    Recommends · Aug 2026 · in “Emacs 31: An unofficial guide to Markdown-ts-mode”

39. Emacs has a killer app, Org mode. For me, it's about as important as good programming modes, if not more

    Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “Emacs and Vim in the Age of AI”

40. I would really recommend to use vim for simple editing taks and Emacs for organizing your digital life

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Markdown Is a Disaster: Why and What to Do Instead”