Use the following in your ~/.emacs file have Emacs display a little marker in the left fringe for window area not part of the buffer (ie. not filled with empty lines):
(setq-default indicate-empty-lines t)
Or temporarily use M-x set-variable to set ‘indicate-empty-lines’
to t.
For Emacs 20:
From: Samuel Padgett Subject: Re: Highlight end of buffer Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 19:48:38 GMT
(defun my-mark-eob () (let ((existing-overlays (overlays-in (point-max) (point-max))) (eob-mark (make-overlay (point-max) (point-max) nil t t)) (eob-text "~~~")) ;; Delete any previous EOB markers. Necessary so that they don't ;; accumulate on calls to revert-buffer. (dolist (next-overlay existing-overlays) (if (overlay-get next-overlay 'eob-overlay) (delete-overlay next-overlay))) ;; Add a new EOB marker. (put-text-property 0 (length eob-text) 'face '(foreground-color . "slate gray") eob-text) (overlay-put eob-mark 'eob-overlay t) (overlay-put eob-mark 'after-string eob-text))) (add-hook 'find-file-hooks 'my-mark-eob)