According to the documentation, setting the :line-width attribute on a face to a negative value 'avoid[s] any increase in the character height or width'. However, when I set it it does increase the width as if the value were positive. To replicate: open a new .org file, type in "* TODO Foo" and execute (set-face-attribute 'org-todo nil :box '(:line-width 4)) (set-face-attribute 'org-todo nil :box '(:line-width -4)) Note that the "Foo" doesn't move, implying that the width of the "TODO" doesn't change. In GNU Emacs 24.3.1 (x86_64-apple-darwin13.2.0, NS apple-appkit-1265.20) of 2014-05-24 on senator-armstrong Windowing system distributor `Apple', version 10.3.1265 Configured using: `configure '--prefix=/usr/local/Cellar/emacs/24.3' '--without-dbus' '--enable-locallisppath=/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp' '--infodir=/usr/local/Cellar/emacs/24.3/share/info/emacs' '--without-gnutls' '--with-ns' '--disable-ns-self-contained' 'CC=clang'' Important settings: locale-coding-system: nil default enable-multibyte-characters: t Major mode: Org Minor modes in effect: org-indent-mode: t shell-dirtrack-mode: t show-paren-mode: t global-undo-tree-mode: t undo-tree-mode: t projectile-global-mode: t projectile-mode: t ido-ubiquitous-mode: t tooltip-mode: t mouse-wheel-mode: t menu-bar-mode: t file-name-shadow-mode: t global-font-lock-mode: t font-lock-mode: t blink-cursor-mode: t auto-composition-mode: t auto-encryption-mode: t auto-compression-mode: t column-number-mode: t line-number-mode: t visual-line-mode: t transient-mark-mode: t Load-path shadows: /Users/kata/code/dotfiles/emacs.d/.cask/24.3.1/elpa/org-20140519/org hides /usr/local/Cellar/emacs/24.3/share/emacs/24.3/lisp/org/org /Users/kata/code/dotfiles/emacs.d/.cask/24.3.1/elpa/org-20140519/org-w3m hides /usr/local/Cellar/emacs/24.3/share/emacs/24.3/lisp/org/org-w3m /Users/kata/code/dotfiles/emacs.d/.cask/24.3.1/elpa/org-20140519/org-version hides /usr/local/Cellar/emacs/24.3/share/emacs/24.3/lisp/org/org-version /Users/kata/code/dotfiles/emacs.d/.cask/24.3.1/elpa/org-20140519/org-timer hides /usr/local/Cellar/emacs/24.3/share/emacs/24.3/lisp/org/org-timer /Users/kata/code/dotfiles/emacs.d/.cask/24.3.1/elpa/org-20140519/org-table hides /usr/local/Cellar/emacs/24.3/share/emacs/24.3/lisp/org/org-table /Users/kata/code/dotfiles/emacs.d/.cask/24.3.1/elpa/org-20140519/org-src hides /usr/local/Cellar/emacs/24.3/share/emacs/24.3/lisp/org/org-src /Users/kata/code/dotfiles/emacs.d/.cask/24.3.1/elpa/org-20140519/org-rmail 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hides /usr/local/Cellar/emacs/24.3/share/emacs/24.3/lisp/org/ob-comint /Users/kata/code/dotfiles/emacs.d/.cask/24.3.1/elpa/org-20140519/ob-clojure hides /usr/local/Cellar/emacs/24.3/share/emacs/24.3/lisp/org/ob-clojure /Users/kata/code/dotfiles/emacs.d/.cask/24.3.1/elpa/org-20140519/ob-calc hides /usr/local/Cellar/emacs/24.3/share/emacs/24.3/lisp/org/ob-calc /Users/kata/code/dotfiles/emacs.d/.cask/24.3.1/elpa/org-20140519/ob-C hides /usr/local/Cellar/emacs/24.3/share/emacs/24.3/lisp/org/ob-C /Users/kata/code/dotfiles/emacs.d/.cask/24.3.1/elpa/org-20140519/ob-awk hides /usr/local/Cellar/emacs/24.3/share/emacs/24.3/lisp/org/ob-awk /Users/kata/code/dotfiles/emacs.d/.cask/24.3.1/elpa/org-20140519/ob-asymptote hides /usr/local/Cellar/emacs/24.3/share/emacs/24.3/lisp/org/ob-asymptote Features: (shadow sort mail-extr emacsbug message rfc822 mml mml-sec mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231 mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader sendmail rfc2047 rfc2045 ietf-drums mail-utils epa-file epa 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shut-up-autoloads finder-inf package time-date tooltip ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type mwheel ns-win tool-bar dnd fontset image regexp-opt fringe tabulated-list newcomment lisp-mode register page menu-bar rfn-eshadow timer select scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax facemenu font-core frame cham georgian utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao korean japanese hebrew greek romanian slovak czech european ethiopic indian cyrillic chinese case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help simple abbrev minibuffer loaddefs button faces cus-face macroexp files text-properties overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env code-pages mule custom widget hashtable-print-readable backquote make-network-process ns multi-tty emacs)