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## 2 Basic Usage

You can open a URL or search the web with the command `M-x eww`. If the input doesn’t look like a URL or domain name the web will be searched via `eww-search-prefix`. The default search engine is DuckDuckGo. If you want to open a file either prefix the file name with `file://` or use the command `M-x eww-open-file`.

If loading the URL was successful the buffer `*eww*` is opened and the web page is rendered in it. You can leave EWW by pressing `q` or exit the browser by calling `eww-quit`. To reload the web page hit `g` (`eww-reload`). Pressing `w` (`eww-copy-page-url`) will copy the current URL to the kill ring.

The `R` command (`eww-readable`) will attempt to determine which part of the document contains the “readable” text, and will only display this part. This usually gets rid of menus and the like.

The `F` command (`eww-toggle-fonts`) toggles whether to use variable-pitch fonts or not. This sets the `shr-use-fonts` variable.

A URL under the point can be downloaded with `d` (`eww-download`). The file will be written to the directory specified in `eww-download-directory` (Default: `~/Downloads/`).

EWW remembers the URLs you have visited to allow you to go back and forth between them. By pressing `l` (`eww-back-url`) you go to the previous URL. You can go forward again with `r` (`eww-forward-url`). If you want an overview of your browsing history press `H` (`eww-list-histories`) to open the history buffer `*eww history*`. The history is lost when EWW is quit. If you want to remember websites you can use bookmarks.

Along with the URLs visited, EWW also remembers both the rendered page (as it appears in the buffer) and its source. This can take a considerable amount of memory, so EWW discards the history entries to keep their number within a set limit, as specified by `eww-history-limit`; the default being 50. This variable could also be set to `nil` to allow for the history list to grow indefinitely.

PDFs are viewed inline, by default, with `doc-view-mode`, but this can be customized by using the mailcap (see mailcap in Emacs MIME Manual) mechanism, in particular `mailcap-mime-data`.

EWW allows you to bookmark URLs. Simply hit `b` (`eww-add-bookmark`) to store a bookmark for the current website. You can view stored bookmarks with `B` (`eww-list-bookmarks`). This will open the bookmark buffer `*eww bookmarks*`.

To get summary of currently opened EWW buffers, press `S` (`eww-list-buffers`). The `*eww buffers*` buffer allows you to quickly kill, flip through and switch to specific EWW buffer.

Although EWW and shr.el do their best to render webpages in GNU Emacs some websites use features which can not be properly represented or are not implemented (E.g., JavaScript). If you have trouble viewing a website with EWW then hit `&` (`eww-browse-with-external-browser`) inside the EWW buffer to open the website in the external browser specified by `shr-external-browser`. Some content types, such as video or audio content, do not make sense to display in GNU Emacs at all. You can tell EWW to open specific content automatically in an external browser by customizing `eww-use-external-browser-for-content-type`.

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