Sometimes Emacs starts with a bizzare black background. If you want the familiar black text on white background proceed as follows. While in Emacs Alt+x Type, set-background-color (like this : set(space)background(space)color(enter) ) Type, Cyan (This step is neccessary so that the text remains visible while swapping the background and foreground colors. IF you want you can skip this step.) Alt+x Type, set-foreground-color (like this : set(space)foreground(space)color(enter) ) Type, black Alt+x Type, set-background-color (like this : set(space)background(space)color(enter) ) Type, white Done. For a complete guide to Emacs see http://www.delorie.com/gnu/docs/emacs/emacs.html#SEC_Top But I still don't know how to make this effect permanent. Someone suggested to write to the .emacs file directly. I haven't tried it yet.