Org Capture (Part 1)

Intro

Org Capture allows one to capture notes, todos, journal entries, etc. in your org-agenda file system with minimal interruption to your work.

Inspired by John Wiegley's Remember package, which has many features Org Capture does not have and is still worth exploring on its own.

Template of Basic Settings

(setq org-default-notes-file (concat org-directory "/capture.org")) ;; You can set a global default location for notes this way:

(global-set-key (kbd "C-c c") #'org-capture) ;; The Main command

(setq org-capture-templates
  '(("t" "Todo" entry (file "~/Files-2024/org-agenda-files/todo.org")
     "* TODO %? %t  %i\n")
    ("n" "Note" entry (file "/home/yal/Files-2024/org-agenda-files/notes.org")
     "* %^{Title}: %^{Tags}:\n%U%i%?" :jump-to-captured t :empty-lines-before 1 :empty-lines-after 1)))

The Main Commands

`M-x org-capture (org-capture)`

Displays the capture templates menu. Also allows you to customize your capture templates from this selection menu.

You choose a template and input information into a "capture buffer".

The information is then copied to a target file with C-c C-c

`C-c C-c (org-capture-finalize)`

"Banks" the captured information. With a prefix key, also jumps to the newly captured item. DEMO

`C-c C-w (org-capture-refile)`

Tip You can use also use org-refile from the capture buffer (see my video), which allows you to specify a location for the information.

`C-c C-k (org-capture-kill)`

Aborts capture process.

Tip You can also use org-capture from the org-agenda buffer using k. It will use the date under the cursor as default date. DEMO

Tip when you invoke org-capture with 1 prefix key it will take you to the captured item after finalizing. With 2 prefix keys you visit the last stored capture item in its buffer.