The Org Manual: The Export Dispatcher

12.1 The Export Dispatcher

The main entry point for export related tasks is the dispatcher, a hierarchical menu from which it is possible to select an export format and toggle export options¹³² from which it is possible to select an export format and to toggle export options.

C-c C-e (org-export-dispatch): Dispatch for export and publishing commands. When called with a C-u prefix argument, repeat the last export command on the current buffer while preserving toggled options. If the current buffer hasn’t changed and subtree export was activated, the command will affect that same subtree.

Normally the entire buffer is exported, but if there is an active region only that part of the buffer will be exported.

Several export options (see Export settings) can be toggled from the export dispatcher with the following key combinations:

C-a

Toggle asynchronous export. Asynchronous export uses an external Emacs process that is configured with a specified initialization file.

While exporting asynchronously, the output is not displayed, but stored in a place called “the export stack”. This stack can be displayed by calling the dispatcher with a double C-u prefix argument, or with & key from the dispatcher menu.

To make this behavior the default, customize the variable org-export-in-background.

C-b

Toggle body-only export. Its effect depends on the back-end used. Typically, if the back-end has a header section (like <head>...</head> in the HTML back-end), a body-only export will not include this header.

C-s

Toggle subtree export. The top heading becomes the document title.

You can change the default state of this option by setting org-export-initial-scope.

C-v

Toggle visible-only export. Only export the text that is currently visible, i.e., not hidden by outline visibility in the buffer.

With the exception of asynchronous export, a successful export process writes its output to the kill-ring. You can configure this behavior by altering the option org-export-copy-to-kill-ring.

Footnotes

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It is also possible to use a less intrusive interface by setting org-export-dispatch-use-expert-ui to a non-nil value. In that case, only a prompt is visible from the minibuffer. From there one can still switch back to regular menu by pressing ?.