In the help page of a function/variable, how to jump to the corresponding part in the manual?

Question

Sometimes the doc is just confusing without proper background knowledge mentioned in the manual (Info). How to jump to the manual from the help buffer?

Answer 1

Place point on the symbol and press C-h S. This works in buffers with emacs-lisp-mode and in help buffers.

Answer 2

What @Tobias said.

Or if you use library help-fns+.el then *Help* buffers provide a link to help from the manuals. Option help-cross-reference-manuals in that library lets you decide the behavior:

help-cross-reference-manuals is a variable defined in help-fns+.el. Its value is (("emacs" "elisp"))

Documentation:

Manuals to search, for a *Help* buffer link to the manuals. A cons.

The car is a list of manuals to search, or the symbol all, to search all. If nil, then do not create a cross-reference link.

The cdr is a boolean:

• Non-nil means search the manuals, then create a cross-ref link: create it only if some search hits are found.

• nil means create a cross-ref link without searching manuals first (but only if there are some manuals to search).

You can customize this variable.

For more information check the manuals.

The last line of that *Help* output is what this feature adds (to all *Help* buffers). The word "manuals" is a link (as is the word "customize", as usual).

The option value lets you choose whether to search manuals before displaying the *Help* or only when you click the manuals link. The default behavior is the latter.

Answer 3

If there's a link you can follow it, otherwise you just have to open the manual (C-h i) and navigate to the correct section yourself.