Manjaro Linux - Markdown mode does not work in emacs 24.5

Question

I have Manjaro Bellatrix (version 15.10) running on my desktop with latest updates as on 2015-11-11. I have installed emacs from the repositories and tried to open a .md file in emacs when I got the following message

File mode specification error: (file-error "Cannot open load file" "no such file or directory" "markdown-mode.el")

It looks like this file is missing in the distribution or this mode is expected to be installed separately. Running yaourt -Ss markdown doesn't bring any relevant results. Heading over to the main-site for markdown-mode mentions an AUR package that is no longer available.

I need to enable high-lighting and editing support for markdown files. Any ideas ?

Answer 1

Thanks to this excellent site (specifically this post) I realized the markdown-mode package is now available via Emacs Lisp Package Archive (ELPA).

Performed the below steps to install markdown-mode:

1. Follow the instructions in this post, to configure emacs to connect to the package archive at melpa.org.
2. Run M-x list-packages to list all packages avaialble at this archive.
3. Search for markdown (C-s markdown) to locate markdown-mode package.
4. Press i to mark it for install and then press x to perform the installation.

Note: You will need a working internet connection of course to connect to the package repository and to download & install the package.

Also avaialble at melpa.org are markdown-mode+ and markdown-toc packages which are valuable complements to the markdown-mode package.