On 10/19/06, Xiao-Yong Jin <xj2106@columbia.edu> wrote:
>
> Hi, how do you usually format the text body?  I found it frustrating
> if I just want to paste something from somewhere else.
>
>
> * List
>   1. list
>   2. list
>   3. list
>
> indent-region doesn't seem to work very well except the list was
> format as the way that there's no space before the bullet


You probably want to look at filladapt.  This provides ways to fill lists of
various types.

* QUOTE Carsten said
>   : blah blah blah...
>   : and blah blah blah...



Something like this you can also handle by setting the prefix string (^X .
is bound to set-fill-prefix)

C-x . runs `set-fill-prefix'

`set-fill-prefix' is an interactive compiled Lisp function
  -- loaded from "/usr/src/xemacs-21.4.19/.build/lisp/fill.elc"
(set-fill-prefix)

Documentation:
Set the fill prefix to the current line up to point.
Filling expects lines to start with the fill prefix and
reinserts the fill prefix in each resulting line.

-- 
Ed Hirgelt

Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen
and thinking what nobody has thought.