[throw23948672]

I tried to switch to emacs but couldn't find an introductory tutorial that was written for mere mortals.

Currently use vim, or things like gedit and kate that come w/ a DE. I would really like to learn to use emacs, but the last so called "beginner" tutorial I tried started with _learn a new lisp dialect so you can write emacs extensions_. Seriously.

Does anyone know where to find a tutorial that teaches you how to do things like open a file, type some stuff, and save the file?

Maybe show whitespace change highlighting modes and a few hotkeys if I want to get fancy... but like otherwise normal beginner stuff?

[celrod]

Aside from the built in docs, mastering emacs is quite beginner friendly. It's aimed at people with prior programming experience, but not any emacs experience. You can get a few chapters for free.

[ReneFroger]

Maybe https://emacs.zeef.com might be your friend? There are some tutorials listed there for Emacs.

[owl57]

There's a built-in tutorial, called by pressing ctrl-h (or f1) and then t.