diff --git a/FL/fl_utf8.h b/FL/fl_utf8.h
index 27499de12a949d28a2738d57018624a79c2ba5be..bc35ab4b65aa263fdc5eb31bcb04eeb9be17f616 100644
--- a/FL/fl_utf8.h
+++ b/FL/fl_utf8.h
@@ -142,6 +142,15 @@ FL_EXPORT int fl_utf8locale();
  * type of the src text. */
 FL_EXPORT int fl_utf8test(const char *src, unsigned len);
 
+/* XX: return width of "raw" ucs character in columns.
+ * for internal use only */
+FL_EXPORT int fl_wcwidth_(unsigned int ucs);
+
+/* XX: return width of utf-8 character string in columns.
+ * NOTE: this may also do C1 control character (0x80 to 0x9f) to CP1252 mapping,
+ * depending on original build options */
+FL_EXPORT int fl_wcwidth(const char *src);
+
 /* OD: Return true if the character is non-spacing */
 FL_EXPORT unsigned int fl_nonspacing(unsigned int ucs);
 
diff --git a/src/Fl_Text_Buffer.cxx b/src/Fl_Text_Buffer.cxx
index 7ba7a76e611d41dc1308c2c1aa7b399ee7bd7875..5c87340b651011027161948d1c4a87821aef78f1 100644
--- a/src/Fl_Text_Buffer.cxx
+++ b/src/Fl_Text_Buffer.cxx
@@ -1025,8 +1025,8 @@ int Fl_Text_Buffer::character_width(const char *src, int indent, int tabDist)
     int len = fl_utf8len(c);
     int ret = 0;
     unsigned int ucs = fl_utf8decode(src, src+len, &ret);
-    int width = 1; //   mk_wcwidth((wchar_t)ucs); // FIXME
-    // fprintf(stderr, "mk_wcwidth(%x) -> %d (%d, %d, %s)\n", ucs, width, len, ret, s);
+    int width = fl_wcwidth_(ucs);       // FIXME
+    // fprintf(stderr, "mk_wcwidth(%x) -> %d (%d, %d, %s)\n", ucs, width, len, ret, src);
     return width;
   }
   if ((c & 0x80) && !(c & 0x40)) {      // other byte of UTF-8 sequence
diff --git a/src/fl_utf.c b/src/fl_utf.c
index b5b2a53ac267430f60266a0516a9a5c731866850..3240c88ba7e70a473bd108daef191267fc14081d 100644
--- a/src/fl_utf.c
+++ b/src/fl_utf.c
@@ -856,6 +856,51 @@ int fl_utf8test(const char* src, unsigned srclen) {
   return ret;
 }
 
+/* forward declare mk_wcwidth() as static so the name is not visible.
+ */
+ static int mk_wcwidth(unsigned int ucs);
+
+ /* include the c source directly so it's contents are only visible here
+  */
+#include "xutf8/mk_wcwidth.c"
+
+/** wrapper to adapt Markus Kuhn's implementation of wcwidth() for FLTK
+    \param [in] ucs Unicode character value
+    \returns width of character in columns
+
+    This is an implementation of wcwidth() and wcswidth()
+    (defined in IEEE Std 1002.1-2001) for Unicode.
+    See http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ucs/wcwidth.c
+
+    WARNING: this function returns widths for "raw" Unicode characters.
+    It does not even try to map C1 control characters (0x80 to 0x9F) to
+    CP1252, and C0/C1 control characters and DEL will return -1.
+ */
+int fl_wcwidth_(unsigned int ucs) {
+  return mk_wcwidth(ucs);
+}
+
+/** extended wrapper around  fl_wcwidth_(unsigned int ucs) function.
+    \param[in] src pointer to start of UTF-8 byte sequence
+    \returns width of character in columns
+
+    Depending on build options, this function may map C1 control
+    characters (0x80 to 0x9f) to CP1252, and return the width of
+    that character instead. This is not the same behaviour as
+    fl_wcwidth_(unsigned int ucs) .
+
+    Note that other control characters and DEL will still return -1,
+    so if you want different behaviour, you need to test for those
+    characters before calling fl_wcwidth(), and handle them separately.
+ */
+int fl_wcwidth(const char* src) {
+  int len = fl_utf8len(*src);
+  int ret = 0;
+  unsigned int ucs = fl_utf8decode(src, src+len, &ret);
+  int width = fl_wcwidth_(ucs);
+  return width;
+}
+
 /** @} */
 
 /*