GNU bug report logs - #79791
31.0.50; Issues with Chinese (and potentially Japanese) text inline markup in Org mode

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To reply to this bug, email your comments to 79791 AT debbugs.gnu.org.

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Message #5 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: RadioNoiseE <rne.kou <at> icloud.com>
To: bug-gnu-emacs <at> gnu.org
Subject: 31.0.50;
 Issues with Chinese (and potentially Japanese) text inline markup in
 Org mode
Date: Sat, 08 Nov 2025 18:58:14 +0800

When writing Org documents that contain CJ (Chinese and Japanese)
text, inline markup such as |*bold*|, |/italic/| etc often fails to be
recognized correctly, since CJ writing conventions do not divide words
using spaces, while Org's parser relies on whitespace or punctuation
to detect markup boundaries.

  测试*文本*           -> test *text* (Chinese)
  テストテ*キススト*    -> test *text* (Japanese)

One workaround is using zero-width spaces, though this can be
problematic for TeX export backend since the CJK supporting macro-
packages (xeCJK, luatex-ja) might not be expecting this.

This bug report is created as requested by @yantar92 at
https://emacs-china.org/t/help-implementing-better-out-of-the-box-xelatex-export-in-org/30405/7.

> Can someone please create a bug report about this? We have discussed
> potential solutions for Org markup when using Chinese on the list,
> but that was rather theoretical, without input from native speakers.

> One of the possibilities I do recall is using zero-width space. You
> can get bold inside Org buffers that way: |你好​*你好*​你好|. (you can
> copy-paste into Org buffer and see that "hello" in the middle is
> fontified as bold). This, however does not work with latex export as
> latex typesets zero-width spaces as normal spaces by default. So, we
> further discussed a possibility to cleanup zero-width spaces around
> markup during export. Or, alternatively, there might be a way to do
> the same in LaTeX:

>   #+LANGUAGE: zh
>   #+LATEX_HEADER: \usepackage[UTF8]{ctex}
>   #+LATEX_HEADER: \usepackage{newunicodechar}
>   #+LATEX_HEADER: \newunicodechar{​}{}
>   #+LATEX_COMPILER: xelatex
>   * This is test
>   你好​*你好*​你好.

In GNU Emacs 31.0.50 (build 1, aarch64-apple-darwin24.6.0, NS
 appkit-2575.70 Version 15.7 (Build 24G222)) of 2025-10-14 built on
 rne.local
Repository revision: c6475fa2f20e92a32453272a547367232a1e3e83
Repository branch: feature/igc
Windowing system distributor 'Apple', version 10.3.2575
System Description:  macOS 15.7.2

Configured using:
 'configure 'CFLAGS=-O3 -march=native -pipe'
 'CPPFLAGS=-I/tmp/emacs/esrc/../eart '
 'LDFLAGS=-L/tmp/emacs/esrc/../eart -Wl,-O3' --disable-gc-mark-trace
 --without-all --with-xml2 --with-native-image-api --with-ns
 --with-gnutls --with-toolkit-scroll-bars --with-small-ja-dic
 --with-tree-sitter --with-xwidgets --with-zlib --with-mps'

Configured features:
GNUTLS LIBXML2 MPS NS PDUMPER TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS TREE_SITTER XWIDGETS
ZLIB

Message #8 received at 79791 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
To: RadioNoiseE <rne.kou <at> icloud.com>
Cc: 79791 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#79791: 31.0.50;
 Issues with Chinese (and potentially Japanese) text inline markup in
 Org mode
Date: Sat, 08 Nov 2025 18:13:41 +0200

> Date: Sat, 08 Nov 2025 18:58:14 +0800
> From:  RadioNoiseE via "Bug reports for GNU Emacs,
>  the Swiss army knife of text editors" <bug-gnu-emacs <at> gnu.org>
> 
> When writing Org documents that contain CJ (Chinese and Japanese)
> text, inline markup such as |*bold*|, |/italic/| etc often fails to be
> recognized correctly, since CJ writing conventions do not divide words
> using spaces, while Org's parser relies on whitespace or punctuation
> to detect markup boundaries.
> 
>   测试*文本*           -> test *text* (Chinese)
>   テストテ*キススト*    -> test *text* (Japanese)
> 
> One workaround is using zero-width spaces, though this can be
> problematic for TeX export backend since the CJK supporting macro-
> packages (xeCJK, luatex-ja) might not be expecting this.
> 
> This bug report is created as requested by @yantar92 at
> https://emacs-china.org/t/help-implementing-better-out-of-the-box-xelatex-export-in-org/30405/7.

I believe Ihor intended for you to create an Org bug report, and post
it to the Org forum.

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