rnkn/olivetti

rnkn/olivetti has 1,298 GitHub stars and 34 forks. GitHot measured 0 stars in 24 hours. Last checked 2026-11-07 08:13 UTC. Last push 2026-05-24.

How these counts are measured

Emacs minor mode to automatically balance window margins

1,298 stars 34 forks

What you can do

Set a desired text body width to automatically resize window margins to keep the text comfortably in the middle of the window.
Text body width can be the number of characters (an integer), a fraction of the window width (a float between 0.0 and 1.0), or nil which uses the value of fill-column +2.
Interactively change body width with:olivetti-shrink C-c { { { ...olivetti-expand C-c } } } ...olivetti-set-width C-c |
If olivetti-body-width is an integer, the text body width will scale with use of text-scale-mode, whereas if a fraction (float) then the text body width will remain at that fraction.

Measured star growth

in 24h: 0
in 7 days: Update delayed
in 15 days: Update delayed
in 1 month: Update delayed

Net star changes over overlapping periods, not daily totals. Missing measurements are left blank. Stars measure attention, not software quality.

README.md

Original

Olivetti

A simple Emacs minor mode for a nice writing environment.

olivetti screenshot

Features

Set a desired text body width to automatically resize window margins to keep the text comfortably in the middle of the window.
Text body width can be the number of characters (an integer), a fraction of the window width (a float between 0.0 and 1.0), or nil which uses the value of fill-column +2.
Interactively change body width with:
olivetti-shrink C-c { { { ...
olivetti-expand C-c } } } ...
olivetti-set-width C-c |
If olivetti-body-width is an integer, the text body width will scale with use of text-scale-mode, whereas if a fraction (float) then the text body width will remain at that fraction.
Change the way the text body margins look with option olivetti-style: use margins, fringes, or both for a fancy "page" look.
Customize olivetti-fringe face to affect only Olivetti buffers.
Optionally remember the state of visual-line-mode on entry and recall its state on exit.

Olivetti keeps everything it does buffer-local, so you can write prose in one buffer and code in another, side-by-side in the same frame.

Requirements

Emacs 24.4

Installation

The latest stable release of Olivetti is available via MELPA-stable. First, add MELPA-stable to your package archives:

M-x customize-option RET package-archives RET

Insert an entry named melpa-stable with URL: https://stable.melpa.org/packages/

You can then find the latest stable version of olivetti in the list returned by:

M-x list-packages RET

If you prefer the latest but perhaps unstable version, do the above using MELPA.

Advanced Installation

Download the latest tagged release, move this file into your load-path and add to your init.el file:

(require 'olivetti)

If you wish to contribute to or alter Olivetti's code, clone the repository into your load-path and require as above:

git clone https://github.com/rnkn/olivetti.git

Bugs and Feature Requests

Use GitHub issues or send me an email (address in the package header). For bugs, please ensure you can reproduce with:

$ emacs -Q -l olivetti.el

Alternatives

For those looking for a hardcore distraction-free writing mode with a much larger scope, I recommend Writeroom Mode.

Donations

Donations are graciously accepted via Github, or Liberapay.