Emacs-KP: Knuth-Plass Line Breaking for Emacs

Source layout: add the repository root to load-path and use (require 'ekp). The supported API and usage notes are in ekp.el; implementation modules live in lisp/.

中文文档 | Developer Guide

Emacs-kp implements the Knuth-Plass optimal line breaking algorithm with full support for CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) and Latin mixed text typesetting, entirely inside Emacs.

Features

• Optimal line breaking — the Knuth-Plass dynamic program finds the globally optimal set of breaks for a paragraph, not greedy first-fit.
• CJK support — every CJK character is a breakable box; kinsoku rules keep punctuation attached (，。 never start a line, 「《 never end one); dedicated inter-CJK and CJK↔Latin spacing.
• Hyphenation — Frank Liang's algorithm (the TeX algorithm) with 49 checksum-pinned Hunspell pattern dictionaries bundled.
• Pixel-accurate justification — one semantic layout plan drives both renderers. The string API uses pixel spaces; buffer layout combines space-width with absolute-pixel min-width, so it works with variable-width fonts without inserting layout characters.
• Clean editable buffers — buffer commands create no overlays and add no glue spaces, soft newlines, or discretionary hyphens to the character stream. buffer-string, char-after, search, syntax, save, and ordinary Elisp text consumers see the source characters.
• Text properties preserved — faces, colors and other properties survive justification; inserted hyphens inherit the face of the word they break.
• Robust on hard input — unprotected overlong tokens (URLs, long words at narrow widths) degrade to emergency breaks instead of losing text; every input produces output.
• Optional C module — a dynamic module runs the DP in C with a thread pool that processes paragraphs in parallel (see benchmarks).

Requirements

• Emacs 29.1+ (uses string-pixel-width and object-intervals)
• Optional, for the C module: a C11 compiler and pthreads

Installation

With package.el, install the package from your archive of choice. The package keeps dictionaries/ and native/ next to lisp/, and package-install places them together, so no extra path setup is needed.

From source, add the repository root to load-path and keep dictionaries/ and native/ at that root:

(add-to-list 'load-path "/path/to/emacs-kp")
(require 'ekp)
(require 'ekp)   ; buffer/region commands

Byte-compiling is strongly recommended — the Elisp engine is about 10× faster compiled.

Quick Start

(require 'ekp)

;; Justify a paragraph to 600 pixels
(insert (ekp-pixel-justify "Your paragraph text here..." 600))

;; Find the best width in a range; returns (justified-text . width)
(ekp-pixel-range-justify "Your text" 400 800)

Multiline strings are treated as one paragraph per line; blank lines are preserved.

C module (recommended for long texts)

cd native && make PROFILE=portable # default; produces ekp.dylib/.so/.dll

(ekp-c-module-load)     ; prints "ekp-c module loaded (version 1.6, N threads)"
(ekp-c-module-build)    ; prompts for portable/native/debug/sanitize

Once loaded (and since ekp-use-c-module defaults to t), all justification calls automatically use the C engine. The Elisp and C engines produce identical output; Elisp is the always-available path when no module is enabled or C returns no result. An enabled module signal is surfaced as a backend contract failure. If the module on disk is older than the Elisp code expects, loading refuses with a message asking you to rebuild.

Automatic live append has a separate ekp-auto-justify-native-append switch, enabled by default. When a compatible module is already loaded, auto-mode may use it for the prepared append DP even if ekp-use-c-module is nil; full string/buffer layout still follows ekp-use-c-module. Set the new switch to nil to force pure-Elisp live append, or when the module is unavailable it falls back automatically.

Complete usage and interface contracts.

Development

After cloning, run make setup-hooks. Before submitting a change, run make check; make structure-check is the fast organization gate.

docs/architecture.md · CHANGELOG.md

make check runs structure checks, compilation and the public acceptance scenarios listed in tests/acceptance.json. make test runs the same public API suite. The inventory covers every maintained Lisp test. GUI and performance checks use separate targets.

Source layout

Add the repository root to load-path and require ekp. The root entry loads the implementation in lisp/ and documents the supported public APIs in its Commentary. Package archives include both the root entry and lisp/.