Question

Does anyone know a good algorithm to word wrap an input string to a specified number of lines rather than a set width. Basically to achieve the minimum width for X lines.

e.g. "I would like to be wrapped into two lines"
goes to
"I would like to be
wrapped into two lines"

"I would like to be wrapped into three lines"
goes to
"I would like to
be wrapped into
three lines"

Inserting new lines as required. I can find other word wrap questions but they all have a known width and want to insert as many lines as needed to fit that width. I am after the opposite.

Answers preferable in a .NET language but any language would be helpful. Obviously if there is a framework way to do this I am not aware of let me know.

Edit I have found this since which I think the accepted answer is the solution to my problem but am having difficulty understanding it. Algorithm to divide text into 3 evenly-sized groups any chance someone could convert it to c# or vb.net.

Answer 1

Here is the accepted solution from Algorithm to divide text into 3 evenly-sized groups converted to C#:

static List<string> Minragged(string text, int n = 3)
{
    var words = text.Split();

    var cumwordwidth = new List<int>();
    cumwordwidth.Add(0);

    foreach (var word in words)
        cumwordwidth.Add(cumwordwidth[cumwordwidth.Count - 1] + word.Length);

    var totalwidth = cumwordwidth[cumwordwidth.Count - 1] + words.Length - 1;

    var linewidth = (double)(totalwidth - (n - 1)) / n;

    var cost = new Func<int, int, double>((i, j) =>
    {
        var actuallinewidth = Math.Max(j - i - 1, 0) + (cumwordwidth[j] - cumwordwidth[i]);
        return (linewidth - actuallinewidth) * (linewidth - actuallinewidth);
    });

    var best = new List<List<Tuple<double, int>>>();

    var tmp = new List<Tuple<double, int>>();
    best.Add(tmp);
    tmp.Add(new Tuple<double, int>(0.0f, -1));
    foreach (var word in words)
        tmp.Add(new Tuple<double, int>(double.MaxValue, -1));

    for (int l = 1; l < n + 1; ++l)
    {
        tmp = new List<Tuple<double, int>>();
        best.Add(tmp);
        for (int j = 0; j < words.Length + 1; ++j)
        {
            var min = new Tuple<double, int>(best[l - 1][0].Item1 + cost(0, j), 0);
            for (int k = 0; k < j + 1; ++k)
            {
                var loc = best[l - 1][k].Item1 + cost(k, j);
                if (loc < min.Item1 || (loc == min.Item1 && k < min.Item2))
                    min = new Tuple<double, int>(loc, k);
            }
            tmp.Add(min);
        }
    }

    var lines = new List<string>();
    var b = words.Length;

    for (int l = n; l > 0; --l)
    {
        var a = best[l][b].Item2;
        lines.Add(string.Join(" ", words, a, b - a));
        b = a;
    }

    lines.Reverse();
    return lines;
}