37.17 Images

To display an image in an Emacs buffer, you must first create an image descriptor, then use it as a display specifier in the display property of text that is displayed (see Display Property).

Emacs is usually able to display images when it is run on a graphical terminal. Images cannot be displayed in a text terminal, on certain graphical terminals that lack the support for this, or if Emacs is compiled without image support. You can use the function display-images-p to determine if images can in principle be displayed (see Display Feature Testing).