emacs split into 3 even windows

Question

Quick question: How do I specify the number of characters in a split window? C-x-3 Splits my window into two windows evenly, but a subsequent split will split one of the windows in half. I'd like 3 equal sized windows. The documentation says that I should be able to specify the number of characters for the left buffer as a parameter, but I cant seem to get that to work. Any ideas for syntax?

Thanks.

score 299 · Answer 1 · edited Sep 11 '17 at 12:53

299

C-x 3 twice followed by C-x + to equally size all windows.

edited Sep 11 '17 at 12:53

kjhughes

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answered Apr 05 '10 at 09:11

Josh Matthews

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Is there a way to get Emacs to immediately create three equally-sized windows with one command, rather than doing `C-x 3 C-x 3 C-x +`? – SabreWolfy May 09 '11 at 09:34
4

@sabrewolfy make a macro – interestedparty333 Nov 09 '17 at 18:22
Or `C-x 2 C-x +` for horizontal splitting (good for vertical monitor) – lil' wing Oct 23 '20 at 16:12
1

Years of fiddling with "drag-mouse-1: resize". Our long nightmare is over. – Ahmed Jun 06 '21 at 13:26

score 28 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 05 '10 at 07:50

28

To specify the number of characters in the split window, do:

C-u number-of-characters C-x 3

answered Apr 05 '10 at 07:50

Nikwin

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Window width too small (after splitting) – Mittenchops Dec 07 '13 at 07:45
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The problem is it doesn't make the windows _even_, that's setting the width manually and so you'd have to count how many characters wide and tall the emacs window is to size them evenly. The answer below is more useful. – leinaD_natipaC Dec 14 '13 at 16:07
28

`C-x +` to make em evenly spaced – Josh.F Oct 11 '16 at 18:03
2

Downvoted because manual resizing. I don't want to count my terminal height and divide it by 3. – byxor Jan 24 '18 at 16:24
This answers the question, but Josh. F's comment and Josh Matthews' answer are what most people would like. – Zach Oct 29 '20 at 18:59

score 17 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 05 '10 at 17:54

17

I have the following in my .emacs:

(defadvice split-window-horizontally (after rebalance-windows activate)
  (balance-windows))
(ad-activate 'split-window-horizontally)

this makes emacs call rebalance-windows (which is what C-x + is bound to by default) after every resize. It's not what I want all the time, but I want it much more often than the default behavior.

answered Apr 05 '10 at 17:54

quodlibetor

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thanks for this, but I'm not sure you need the call to `(ad-activate ...)` since you included `activate` in a separate form. – wpcarro Oct 10 '17 at 15:12
I use C-x 3 for split-window-right, and this worked for me without the ad-activate: `(defadvice split-window-right (after rebalance-windows activate) (balance-windows))` – beaslera Jul 12 '22 at 13:07

score 12 · Answer 4 · edited Nov 10 '14 at 17:41

12

add in .emacs. I mapped to C-x 4, but anyone has a better idea?

(defun split-3-windows-horizontally-evenly ()
  (interactive)
  (command-execute 'split-window-horizontally)
  (command-execute 'split-window-horizontally)
  (command-execute 'balance-windows)
)

(global-set-key (kbd "C-x 4") 'split-3-windows-horizontally-evenly)

edited Nov 10 '14 at 17:41

David J.

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answered Dec 13 '11 at 21:35

xosp7tom

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I wouldn't assign that to `C-x 4`. That's the default prefix for a heap of other commands. See `C-x 4 C-h` (without setting your binding, obviously). – phils Dec 13 '11 at 23:20
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@phils whoa after all these years and I never knew how to get a list of commands with some common prefix... I love emacs. – mgalgs Aug 16 '12 at 22:55

score 4 · Answer 5 · answered Apr 16 '13 at 12:14

(defun wenshan-split-window-vertical (&optional wenshan-number)
"Split the current window into `wenshan-number' windows"
  (interactive "P")
  (setq wenshan-number (if wenshan-number
                           (prefix-numeric-value wenshan-number)
                         2))
  (while (> wenshan-number 1)
    (split-window-right)
    (setq wenshan-number (- wenshan-number 1)))
  (balance-windows))

This function can be used to split the current window into N windows, you can type "C-u 3 M-x wenshan-split-window-vertical" to achieve what you want.

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Feb 17 '16 at 16:02

2

If you use evil do C-x 3 and then C-w =

answered Feb 17 '16 at 16:02

endre

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score 2 · Answer 7 · answered Sep 27 '19 at 14:33

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I liked @quodlibetor's solution, but it didn't work as written. This works for me (emacs 24.5)

(advice-add 'split-window-right :after #'balance-windows)

answered Sep 27 '19 at 14:33

ianxm

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score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Aug 27 '20 at 22:31

One of the problems with many of the answers that use balance-windowshere is that they may not allow the window to split due to window-min-width or split-width-threshold even if everything would be fine after rebalancing. For example, I don't want windows less than 100 characters wide, but if I split my screen once I get two windows that are 160 characters wide and can't split again without resizing one of the windows. I haven't figured out how to determine whether a split is good yet, so I'll probably just dynamically bind those values to 0 while splitting, and maybe do a window-configuration-to-register beforehand just in case so that I can recover the old layout when things go wrong.

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Sep 02 '21 at 22:03

Here is my solution, hope it helps:

(defun split-vertical-evenly ()
  (interactive)
  (command-execute 'split-window-vertically)
  (command-execute 'balance-windows))
(global-set-key (kbd "C-x 2") 'split-vertical-evenly)

(defun split-horizontal-evenly ()
  (interactive)
  (command-execute 'split-window-horizontally)
  (command-execute 'balance-windows))
(global-set-key (kbd "C-x 3") 'split-horizontal-evenly)

emacs split into 3 even windows

9 Answers9