I am able to reproduce this issue running emacs -Q with "GNU Emacs 24.3.50.1 (i686-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.6.3)". I've wrote a snippet that will allow me to demonstrate this issue: (let ((str (concat (propertize "red" 'face '((:foreground "red"))) (propertize "green" 'face '((:foreground "green"))) (propertize "blue" 'face '((:foreground "blue"))))) (printer (lambda (offset) (let* ((pos1 (+ offset (point))) (pos2 (+ 1 (length str) pos1))) (insert str ?\s str ?\n) (overlay-put (make-overlay pos1 (+ 3 pos1)) 'face '((:inverse-video t))) (overlay-put (make-overlay pos2 (+ 3 pos2)) 'invisible 'outline))))) (with-current-buffer (get-buffer-create "*test*") (setq buffer-invisibility-spec '((outline . t))) (text-scale-set 4) (display-buffer (current-buffer)) (erase-buffer) (mapc printer '(2 3 4)))) After running this code you will be able to see, in a new buffer, 3 lines of 2 words, all words are the same, each line features three-letter long overlay over each of the words, highlighting letters underneath them on left side, and hiding them behind ellipses on right side. Whenever an overlay spans from a point where there's a change to 'face' text-property, produced ellipsis doesn't adopt face decoration of neither side. Furthermore, ellipsis part of the buffer appears to ignore current text-scale setting, which is being set to 4 for temporary buffer in my example. Thank you for your attention. All corrections that may help me improve my further reports are welcomed.