RE: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

RE: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[Pearson, Mark (Capita Symonds)]

Hi All,

I'm currently working in a team which is building a system for
the automatic production of office stationery (business cards,
letterheads and compliment slips) with ConTeXt at its heart. 

The system provides a web-application front end for selected
users to create stationery orders. These orders are then 
processed to produce .tex files, which are processed by 
ConTeXt to produce press-ready PDFs. The PDFs are sent with
order details straight to our in-house printing department.

I was tasked with creating the PDF engine and chose ConTeXt
because (a) I have a lot of experience with LaTeX and hence a
great deal of respect for TeX's capabilities but (b) knew that
controlling the layouts in LaTeX would be a pain.

The following features of ConTeXt are used in this project:

* Native support for OpenType fonts
* Support for creation of high quality press-ready PDFs
* Fine control over document layout, page design etc.
* Support for embedding JPG, TIFF, PNG amd PDF images
* Support for the use of named (PANTONE) spot colours

The choice of ConTeXt was not an easy one having never used
it before but my gut feeling was that it is a very powerful
and flexible piece of software. It has met all my requirements
so far but not without a fight, as the documentation can be
very sparse! 

I will certainly contribute what documentation I can when I
have more time.

Mark

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Re: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[Jörg Hagmann]

>   What do you do with ConTeXT?

As the editor of the 70+ page annual report of an ornithological  
society, I learned to hate word. When I was approached by a publisher  
with the offer of writing a textbook of biochemistry, I decided to  
try something more suitable and chose -- just why is hard to say, I  
didn't know anything about any of the possibilities -- ConTEXt.  It  
was very hard simply to find out what it was and then how to install  
it and after that how to get some presentable result. But it's great  
-- thanks to everybody.

It is always claimed that writing in a text editor and leaving the  
layout/typesetting part for later is better because you concentrate  
on writing. This is not true, at least not when working with ConTEXt.  
It is much more fun to "tex" what you have, to try out this and  
that,  than to think about the next sentence. I now write with a  
Parker Duofold (bought years ago while on a bicycle tour in the  
Netherlands!) in a notebook before I go to the computer.

One last thing: TEX-users seem to be very modest. They always claim  
to be just beginners. An example: The title of a recent TUGboat  
article (2003) was "Writing a book -- A first experience with LaTEX".  
The introduction defined the contribution as a "paper by non-experts  
for non-experts". Just what I need, I thought. It wasn't, and the  
explanation could be found at the end: The author had "a thirty-plus  
year career in high tech computer R&D" ...

Cheers, Jörg.


Prof. Dr.med. Jörg Hagmann-Zanolari
Institute of Biochemistry and Genetics
DKBW, University of Basel
Mattenstrasse 28
CH-4058 Basel
Switzerland
Phone +41 (0)61 6953049

Re: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[Lutz Haseloff]

Taco Hoekwater schrieb:
> Hi all,
> 
> For the next issue of the ntg's Maps journal, Hans and I believe
> it would be nice to publish the collected responses to this simple
> question:
> 
>   What do you do with ConTeXT?
> 
> We think it would be nice to see all the various ways in which people
> experience ConTeXt. We are not looking for articles, in fact we really
> want just a small amount of text per user, nothing longer then you
> would normally type in an email message.
> 

I

- write all my personal documents with ConTeXt
- prepared some complicated fillable Forms including
	calculations by Javascript and sending the
	data to a webserver
- convert some Manuals to ConTeXt (step by step)
- query an Oracle database with perl and write the
	results to ConTeXt files
- all my presentations i create with ConTeXt
- typeset chinese texts

Thanks for ConTeXt!


Greetings Lutz

Re: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[Vit Zyka]

Taco Hoekwater wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> For the next issue of the ntg's Maps journal, Hans and I believe
> it would be nice to publish the collected responses to this simple
> question:
> 
>   What do you do with ConTeXT?

- proceedings from individual PDFs,
- presentations,
- posters,
- logos, visiting cards,
- manual (HTML and PDF form from XML source),
- personal electronic travel-journal (http://typokvitek.com/nzs you can 
see evolution of my ConTeXt skills)
- booklet with very complex layout (sometimes seems to me over my 
ConTeXt skills) with two-column, margin, many, many floats, balancing, 
sorting, in Czech, ... I will write some experience with this -- if I 
will finnish it and survive two times postponned deadline...

As a 'clever plain' with METAPOST, layers, and overlayes the ConTeXt it 
is excelent! As a 'all-in-one key-val LaTeX' it is nice and uniform. And 
as a tool to solve 'so far TeX dreams' it is problematic: without 
deadlines it is a funny game, with them a pain.

In every point, thanks to authors for Him.

vit

Re: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[Hans Hagen]

Thomas A. Schmitz wrote:

>  around, but if you just  want a job done, ConTeXt can be a bit 
> daunting. The wiki is just  beginning to take off, and when Hans 
> and/or Taco are away or are too  busy to answer questions on the list, 
> it becomes a bit discouraging  because there are so many questions 
> with just very few answers being  posted.

just repost;  mails shift out of my mail windows -)

> - I sometimes wonder where we will be in ten years: will we all stll  
> be using this wonderful tool? Will Hans continue to have time and  
> energy to develop it? How can we convince more TeX users to come over  
> to ConTeXt and help?


don't worry, new things will keep coming -)

Hans

Re: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[Tom Fossen]

Op vrijdag 4 november 2005 15:49, schreef Taco Hoekwater:
>    What do you do with ConTeXT?

I use Context for making the church-magazine of the parish of which I am the 
minister. With Metafun I constructed headers, page-numbers and all sorts of 
symbols - forming a style that connects all sorts of input from members and 
bodies within the community. 
It's great fun to see each monthly edition grow, from (sometimes) scraps of 
paper into an well-organized and good looking magazine, complete with photos 
and other illustrations.

I learned using Context while writing papers for my training as a contextual 
therapist. And since I started a practice as contextual therapist I use it 
for flyers, correspondence, bills.

There is still a lot to learn. I haven't studied yet the project management 
facilities which might be helpful for my monthly editors job.
I would like to explore the chart flow module to see if it would be useful in 
creating genograms which are used in contextual therapy.
I am very interested in using Context for texts with mixed left to right and 
right to left texts (i.e. dutch (or english) and hebrew).  

With so much still to explore in this great project, I am far from being able 
to contribute to it. I owe so much to Hans and all the others who really 
build this wonderful 'thing'. May be some day .... 


						tom 

--- 
Tom Fossen
e-mail: tom.fossen@xs4all.nl

Re: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[Jose Antonio Rodriguez]

A las 15:49 del vie 04 nov, Taco Hoekwater tuvo a bien escribir:
> 
>   What do you do with ConTeXT?
> 

Hi all,

I started some years ago to study ConTeXT out of my interest for
typesetting. I just choose it over LaTeX for his integrated model seemed
better to me, and never regretted.
It have been a rough step learning curve, though. 
Til now I used to typeset/illustrate books with  DSP tools and 
my aim is use ConTeXT/MetaFun to do it. 
Right now I'm converting html based documentation through the xml
toolchain (texml), but most of the time I fight with some obscure
parameter trying to put things where I want.
Integrating MetaPost is definitely a plus for a designer.

Thanks for the tools - (and the mental gym :)

Jose

-- 
José Antonio Rodríguez
jar@eideia.net
------------------------
'El Fuego vive en los corazones de quienes aman el futuro' (Agni Yoga)

Re: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[Volker RW Schaa]

Taco Hoekwater wrote:
> 
>   What do you do with ConTeXT?
> 

I developed a workflow for (particle accelerator) conference proceedings using
XML, Perl, and LaTeX. This task was an easy one, because it doesn't matter whether
you need to combine 50 or 1400 papers, each page or book will look exactly the same
for each conference series.
But I became very dissatisfied with the standard abstract booklet(s) which have to be
produced for the participants of such conferences. Here you (nearly) have the full
freedom of putting the information together. When my original design (using bleeding
boxes for titles, author names, and paper code information) brought me to the limits
of LaTeX, I discussed what I wanted with Hans. His statement, 'No problem!', led to
the question 'How?'. Within a week I learnt basic ConTeXt, and Hans provided the
macros to combine METAPOST and TeX in a way that still leads to questions 'How was
that done?.' So I now always include a 'Production Note' in my books and booklets
to tell people what you can do with ConTeXt and TeX. Especially if you have Hans
on-(a telephone)-line :-)

In the meantime this 'Abstract Booklet Software' is part of scripts which are used
for various conferences. One short example (it was printed as A5 booklet) you can
find on the conference web page:

    http://bel.gsi.de/dipac2005/     --> Abstract Booklet
or

    http://bel.gsi.de/dipac2005/papers/abstract.pdf

Pages 3-16, 19-68 are produced by the scripts, starting at page 19 you will see what
Hans does with METAPOST in an otherwise dull looking document.

What I like to see is a documentation for beginners and advanced users, written not
by the 'Master' himself. Up to now I could cope with my problems being able to reach
Hans by mail or phone nearly everywhere and anytime. So, much of the praise I got for
the booklets I owe to him. And for that I have to express my thanks!

When I'm asked by TeX-aware people, what ConTeXt is, I now like to answer by citing
Steve Grathwohl: 'What LaTeX was for the 20th century, ConTeXt is for the 21st!'

Cheers,
      Volker

Re: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[Otared KAVIAN]

On 11/4/05, Taco Hoekwater <taco@elvenkind.com> wrote:
>
>    What do you do with ConTeXT?

Hi all,

I am a mathematician and I use ConTeXt mainly for my conferences when
I do a presentation on computer. The reasons for which I chose ConTeXt
rather than other TeX macros are:
--- the material typeset with ConTeXt is visually beautiful (one sees
that apart from being a wizard in writing clever macros, Hans Hagen is
also a great artist...)
--- ConTeXt includes (almost) everything from plain-TeX: since for my
papers and other publications I use plain-TeX with some basic macros I
have written, it is easy to port those material into ConTeXt;
--- it is easy to use graphics and MetaPost material in ConTeXt;
--- since I am a Mac user, it is possible to use XeTeX for writing
Right-to-Left material and profit from (almost) all ConTeXt features
(many thanks, among others, to Hans Hagen, Johnaton Kew, Adam Lindsay,
and Gerben Wierda who made this possible). I use XeTeX + ConTeXt for
writing Persian (or Faarsi), which is a non Arabic language using
Arabic alphabet.
Recently I use also ConTeXt for some lecture notes in mathematics for
my students, but unfortunately I gave up learning enough of ConTeXt
capacities to write a book with it... For this still I use plain TeX
and some personal macros, since it seems easier to adapt them to the
publisher's constraints.

I have tried to convince friends and colleagues to use ConTeXt rather
than LaTeX, but I must admit that so far I have not been successful,
since ConTeXt is growing fast and sometimes changes happen to destroy
what one used to be able to do, and that the available documentation
is not very user-friendly (despite the fact that the community on this
list is extremely helpful and friendly to help solve problems and
questions).
The interesting point is that up to now everything I have been
thinking of doing with TeX and computer typesetting, has been found
somewhere in ConTeXt. So I am confident ConTeXt is going to be
stabilized and the documentation made more friendly, little by little,
thanks to all of you...

Best regards: OK

Re: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[Frank]

After using LaTeX I use ConTeXt in my work environment (MS office 
based) for:

- Letters, Quotes and Faxes
- Reports (with floats and references)
- Pricelists using perl based conversion of a database export

But I must admit that I now increasingly use Apple Pages to write 
letters, faxes and the like as it just works faster (copy/paste graphic 
for example). For large documents ConTeXt stays the preferred option.

What I miss is:

- A layer on top of ConTeXt for common documents like Letters, 
Invoices, etc.. I had to build my own templates, which are not nearly 
as robust as the LaTeX classes I used before.

- An IDE like LyX as it is easy to forget the macro's and getting in to 
a compile/error/correct cycle. Especially as the TeX error messages are 
not very clear to me.

- A large user base.

Regards,

Frank

On 04 Nov 2005, at 15:49, Taco Hoekwater wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> For the next issue of the ntg's Maps journal, Hans and I believe
> it would be nice to publish the collected responses to this simple
> question:
>
>   What do you do with ConTeXT?
>
> We think it would be nice to see all the various ways in which people
> experience ConTeXt. We are not looking for articles, in fact we really
> want just a small amount of text per user, nothing longer then you
> would normally type in an email message.
>
> One, perhaps two paragraphs that simply tell about your personal 
> experience using (or playing with) (or fighting with) (or yelling at) 
> (or staring at in bewilderment) (or revelling in) (or running away 
> from)
> ConTeXt.
>
> If you like this idea, just reply to this message. I will then
> collect and merge the responses, and finally put a pdf on-line
> somewhere.
>
> Don't be shy!
>
> Taco
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> ntg-context mailing list
> ntg-context@ntg.nl
> http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context

Re: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[Thomas A. Schmitz]

I became dissatisfied with the usual word-processors after  
typesetting a book with Word and seeing the catastrophe that ensued:  
cross-references, indexes, typographic quality, everything was a  
disaster if you looked closer. My first steps into TeX-land were with  
LaTeX. I liked so many aspects of it, but I was a bit frustrated that  
it was so difficult to change the layout of simple things such as  
lists, headings, fonts etc. And I found the plethora of packages that  
one needs to add bewildering.

ConTeXt immediately appealed to me because of its elegant user  
interface, and I liked the choice it offered to users---so many  
\setup this and \start that commands with infinite possibilities to  
modify the look of my documents. But I needed several attempts before  
I finally switched. I now do most of my work in ConTeXt, unless I'm  
forced to use a "normal" word processor because the file will have to  
be integrated in a volume or journal that just has Word etc. as a  
"standard." I'm a scholar in Classics, and I mostly use ConTeXt

- to write my own lecture notes and typeset them on index cards,

- to prepare my screen presentations,

- for all kind of course-related materials;

- and I'm currently preparing a book that will be typeset with ConTeXt.

I am still amazed by the amount of options and for the wonderful  
integration that ConTeXt offers. But there are also some aspects that  
I find frustrating:

- the rather small user and developer base is a problem. It's easy to  
be a dumb LaTeX user---somebody will already have encountered the  
same problem you are just having, and a bit of googling or a question  
on a newsgroup will probably provide a solution. In  ConTeXt, you  
will need to acquire a minimum of knowledge yourself. I've become an  
instant expert in fonts and have prepared (with much help) modules to  
write ancient Greek. I still like playing around, but if you just  
want a job done, ConTeXt can be a bit daunting. The wiki is just  
beginning to take off, and when Hans and/or Taco are away or are too  
busy to answer questions on the list, it becomes a bit discouraging  
because there are so many questions with just very few answers being  
posted.

- This has been repeated ad nauseam, but it's still true: the  
documentation is already wonderful, but there are still so many  
features around that aren't documented at all or not sufficiently.  
The source files sometimes help, but reading them sometimes is way  
over my level of knowledge.

- I sometimes wonder where we will be in ten years: will we all stll  
be using this wonderful tool? Will Hans continue to have time and  
energy to develop it? How can we convince more TeX users to come over  
to ConTeXt and help?

Re: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[Bernd Militzer]

Am Freitag, den 04.11.2005, 15:49 +0100 schrieb Taco Hoekwater:

>    What do you do with ConTeXT?

Two years ago -- I switched from LaTeX to ConTeXt.

I typeset examinations and test for my wife's students at school. 
For that task I wrote based on exam.cls (LaTeX) a ConTexT-modul.

All private und business letters are typeset with my special
DIN-Brief-Modul, based on akletter.cls  (LaTeX) and DIN-letter (ConTeXt)
from Holger Schöner.

I typeset different articles for my father.

I typeset a book (350 page) with lots of tables, german and many czech
words

my next project is a book about my family from 1600  to now.


Bernd


----------------------------------------------------------------- 
Bernd Militzer
Dipl. oec. Dipl.-Hdl. OStR a.D.
Hubertusstr. 34  47906 Kempen

Re: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[olivier Turlier]

   >   What do you do with ConTeXT?

I started  informatic at 33 when coming back to studies : 2 years later 
i've done my thesis with latex (took me 2.5 years!).
Now i try to teach buiding technics and design, with the help of  paper 
and electronic courses made with Context. Hopefully, my boss doesn't 
know that it took me sometimes 2 days for writing a one morning course!

I must recognise that sometimes I think of having a good dtp software, 
but after some test, I come back to Context. In the next decades, I'll 
try to succeed in quizz making and/or nice looking book. I wish to meet 
people using Context one day.

Thanks Hans  and all others on the list .

-- 
Olivier TURLIER

RE: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[Idris Samawi Hamid]

>===== Original Message From ciro@kavyata.com, mailing list for ConTeXt users 
<ntg-context@ntg.nl> =====
>I wrote my novel using ConTeXt. Inside figures with metapost,
>the cover layout with Scribus.

I downloaded the first chapter; it is beautiful-)

Best
Idris

============================
Professor Idris Samawi Hamid
Department of Philosophy
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO 80523

Re: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[Ciro Soto]

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I wrote my novel using ConTeXt. Inside figures with metapost,
the cover layout with Scribus.

See
http://www.TheGuitarMakerExploration.com

Ciro

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Re: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[Alan Bowen]

Taco, Hans—

One of the key features of ConTeXt for me is its ability to create  
platform independent output that combines the ancient languages and  
mathematics in ways typical of publications in the humanities. So,  
first, my heartiest thanks to you both and also to Thomas Schmitz for  
his Greek module.

I currently use ConTeXt to publish the Institute’s review/journal  
(which is available online, in print, and on CD), as well as its  
brochures and announcements. I will also be using it to produce its  
books too.

I have designed a book publication series for my brother using  
ConTeXt; and I use it to write my own papers, reviews, and books.

The main problem that I have is not really with ConTeXt itself. Since  
few of the history of science journals that I send papers to use  
ConTeXt, I am often required to I submit an .rtf file along with  
the .pdf file produced with ConTeXt. So, what I am still  
contemplating is an efficient, “mechanical” way around this problem.

Best, Alan




On Nov 4, 2005, at 9:49 AM, Taco Hoekwater wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> For the next issue of the ntg's Maps journal, Hans and I believe
> it would be nice to publish the collected responses to this simple
> question:
>
>   What do you do with ConTeXT?
>
> We think it would be nice to see all the various ways in which people
> experience ConTeXt. We are not looking for articles, in fact we really
> want just a small amount of text per user, nothing longer then you
> would normally type in an email message.
>
> One, perhaps two paragraphs that simply tell about your personal  
> experience using (or playing with) (or fighting with) (or yelling  
> at) (or staring at in bewilderment) (or revelling in) (or running  
> away from)
> ConTeXt.
>
> If you like this idea, just reply to this message. I will then
> collect and merge the responses, and finally put a pdf on-line
> somewhere.
>
> Don't be shy!
>
> Taco
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> ntg-context mailing list
> ntg-context@ntg.nl
> http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context

Re: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[Charles Doherty]

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Taco Hoekwater wrote:
>   What do you do with ConTeXT?

Dear Taco,

I use ConTeXt for
a) my class guides (incorporating genealogical tables and other  
graphics) and book-lists in both paper and screen versions
b) for typesetting the Newsletter of the Group for the Study of Irish  
Historic Settlement
c) my daughter used ConteXt (with my help) to typeset her thesis
d) I have given three classes in the use of ConTeXt to my  
postgraduate students urging them to use ConTeXt to typeset their  
theses.
Together with Omnigraffle and Bibdesk ConTeXt is ideal for students  
writing theses. I have been using XeTeX more and more for the ease of  
getting diacritical marks (when transliterating Sanskrit for example)  
or medieval characters using the SIL font Gentium.

The use of fonts in ConTeXt is the main problem that I have. I have  
not come to terms with that area yet.
Finally it is a joy to use ConTeXt. A very big thanks to Hans.
Charlie Doherty


*******************
Charles Doherty,
Early Irish History,
Room K113,
School of History,
John Henry Newman Building,
University College Dublin,
Belfield,
Dublin 4

Tel: +353 1 716 8381



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Re: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[Hans van der Meer]

I use ConTeXt for the presentations in my lectures on Cryptography at  
the University of Amsterdam.
I am considering changing my lecture notes (some 300 pages) from  
LaTeX into ConTeXt, especially because the ease of incorporating  
MetaFont pictures into the text.
Also for small documents as for example cd-covers.

Hans van der Meer

Re: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[Peter Münster]

My first experience with ConTeXt was typesetting my brother's PhD thesis in
chemistry. Used features: modes (A5 and A4), project-structure, a lot of
floats, bibliography.

ConTeXt at work:
- technical specifications for electronic devices (used features: modules,
  project-structure, tables generated by scripts)
- presentations
- documentation
- reports
My problem at work: besides me, everyone is speaking M$-Office. I send my
documents to my colleagues always in PDF. Just until today no problem, but
there is some risk, that someone will ask for a Word/Powerpoint version one
day...
Unfortunately, our business is developing electronic devices, but not
sophisticated typesetting, so I cannot spend much more time with ConTeXt,
than I already do.

ConTeXt at home:
- construction plans (one page per figure with well defined scale)
- letters
- finding solutions for problems with ConTeXt at work (with the help of the
  mailing-list)

Future projects:
- typesetting the thesis of my sister-in-law (2 columns with a lot of
  floats)
- writing a letter-module
- teaching ConTeXt to my wife (perhaps impossible)
- just doing more things with ConTeXt

Most important request:
a *complete* reference manual, with description of not only all commands,
but also all parameters. Something like texshow is already fine, but still
very far from complete.

Very much appreciated:
- all the nice features of ConTeXt
- the great support by the developers: thank you!

Cheers, Peter

-- 
http://pmrb.free.fr/contact/

Re: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[Tobias Burnus]

Hi all,

Taco Hoekwater wrote:
>   What do you do with ConTeXT?
As big project I typeset my Diploma (~ Master) thesis with it - and I 
will do so for my PhD as well.
Otherwise I use it for slides and writeups. For papers I so far used 
LaTeX, but I'm toying with the idea to use it also for a paper; 
unfortunally APS and arXiv.org don't support ConTeXt. However, if enough 
authors bug them, they will probably do so at the end. ;-)

Tobias

Re: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[Xiao Jianfeng]

Taco Hoekwater wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> For the next issue of the ntg's Maps journal, Hans and I believe
> it would be nice to publish the collected responses to this simple
> question:
>
>   What do you do with ConTeXT?
>
> We think it would be nice to see all the various ways in which people
> experience ConTeXt. We are not looking for articles, in fact we really
> want just a small amount of text per user, nothing longer then you
> would normally type in an email message.
>
> One, perhaps two paragraphs that simply tell about your personal 
> experience using (or playing with) (or fighting with) (or yelling at) 
> (or staring at in bewilderment) (or revelling in) (or running away from)
> ConTeXt.
>
> If you like this idea, just reply to this message. I will then
> collect and merge the responses, and finally put a pdf on-line
> somewhere.
>
> Don't be shy!
>
> Taco
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> ntg-context mailing list
> ntg-context@ntg.nl
> http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
>
I use ConTeXt to typeset:
1. slides
2. mathematical formula
3. Chinese

It is far more easier to write slides in ConTeXt than in LaTeX. And 
ConTeXt can produce PDF directly.

The math enviroment is not as good as it in LaTeX, but it is enough for 
me now.

The Chinese enviroment is not as good as LaTeX(CJK) either, but it is 
easier to learn. I hope the Chinese module can be enhanced some day.

ConTeXt is a good work, and I like it! I'm going to stick to it.

Regards,

xiaojf

RE: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[Idris Samawi Hamid]

>   What do you do with ConTeXT?

We may divide this into present activities, planned activities, useful, and 
needed features:

Present activities: I use ConTeXt to

a) typeset an academic journal
b) typeset my own books

Planned or in-progress activities: I am striving for

a) advanced critical edition support

b) advanced Arabic-script support, including complicated scripts like 
Nastaliq:

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00xcallig/coloniallate/nastaliq/nastaliq.html

I already have a working Arabic module; though experimental, it produces some 
of the best classical Naskh Arabic script one can find in digital typography-)

c) related to b) I would like to see an integration of aleph and pdfetex (for 
full left-to-right and right-to-left typesetting)

Useful present or needed features: The best feature over LaTeX is its 
predictability and integratedness (no 1001 packages to sift through).

NEEDED:

a) A COMPLETE CONTEXT IDE, maybe even a lyx-like application

b) More streamlined way to setup fonts

c) Complete independence from the TeX distributions (almost there-))

Best
Idris

============================
Professor Idris Samawi Hamid
Department of Philosophy
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO 80523

Re: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[Steffen Wolfrum]

Am 04.11.2005 um 15:49 schrieb Taco Hoekwater:

>   What do you do with ConTeXT?


We are using ConTeXt for typesetting wonderful books ("werksatz"),  
mostly in the fields of arts and humanities.
This kind of books often show an advanced use of footnotes, languages  
and alphabets.

What could be improved in ConTeXt for this specific use is a better  
integration of figures:
Images placed at a certain fixed position surrounded by text.

Hans allready knows my
\placefigure{top, left}
or
\placefigure{bottom, outer}
request for years now ...

Yours
Steffen

---

Esther Knoblich & Steffen Wolfrum  |  werksatz Berlin

contact  :  Anklamer Straße 39  :  D-10115 Berlin  :  +49-30-47374736
mobile  :  www.werksatz.com  :  post@werksatz.com  :  +49-163-4028151

Re: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[Henning Hraban Ramm]

>   What do you do with ConTeXT?

There are two books that I typeset with ConTeXt:
- a collection of Kofi Annan's speeches
- a portrait of and story collection for German Unitarian religious  
fellowship
see http://verlag.unitarier.de/?menu=0-2-2

Personally I use ConTeXt for PDF/paper output of my planner including  
address database, calendar and songbook.
(Addresses are stored in a database, collected with a script and  
written to a ConTeXt table; calendar data incl. moon phases is  
computed, combined with events, holidays, personal appointments etc.  
from several lists and written to ConTeXt files by another script;  
the songbook contains LilyPond scores in ConTeXt files.)

But I still use InDesign for most of my layout work, because I  
normally need the visual approach.

Grüßlis vom Hraban!
---
http://www.fiee.net/texnique/
http://contextgarden.net
http://www.cacert.org (I'm an assurer)

Re: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[Olivier]

Quoting  "Taco Hoekwater" :
> -- was taco@elvenkind.com on Nov 04, 2005 at 03:49:59 --

>   What do you do with ConTeXT?

I use it over plain TeX for mainly these reasons:
 * ease of type1/otf font set up
 * ability to easily deal with layers
 * tight connection with pdf file format
   (like interactive features)

I also thought learning a new macro package was worth because of
the support for xml file format will enable to connect TeX 
with a lot of other appplications.

Up to now, I used it for typesetting my thesis and conference slides.

Greetings,
Olivier

Re: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[Mikael Persson]

Hello

*snip*

" What do you do with ConTeXT?"

I am mostly playing around abit. However, since I work with math it is
mostly something that has to do with math. Some examples:

Slides from a conference talk:
http://hurf.mine.nu/micke/tex/pauli-pres.pdf
Notes to my students:
http://hurf.mine.nu/micke/tex/partikular.pdf
A "second-rental" contract
http://hurf.mine.nu/micke/tex/andrahand.pdf
Some playing with the Mathematica fonts
http://hurf.mine.nu/micke/tex/fultex.pdf
Some sudokus:
http://hurf.mine.nu/micke/tex/sudoku.pdf (with fill-ins)
http://hurf.mine.nu/micke/tex/gp28aug.pdf (with solution steps)
Melodikrysset:
http://hurf.mine.nu/micke/tex/melodikrysset.pdf
A crossword for a friend
http://hurf.mine.nu/micke/tex/kors.pdf
Love letter paper
http://hurf.mine.nu/micke/tex/letterpaper.pdf

OK, that was some examples...

Best regards, Micke P

Re: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[Matthias Weber]

I use typesetting mainly for math:  papers,  class notes and slides.  
I started with Signum
(a wysiwyg program for the Atari, which was great), switched to  
AmsTeX , then
to LaTeX, and now to ConTeXt. I am bad at remembering macros, I wrote  
most papers
using cut & paste, and when I needed to do something in LateX that I  
couldn't look up
in a previous paper, I spent lots of time digging through the 1001  
macro packages
available for LaTeX. ConTeXt is much better here for several reasons:

i) It is much more logical, i.e. the way it should work usually  
works, and
ii) if not, there is this great email list where I can ask and  
usually learn
that ConTeXt is even more logical than I thought before.
iii) it is very easy to reuse material. I can have print and slide  
versions of class
notes almost without extra work
iv) ConTeXt is easy to learn incrementally. When I see a feature I  
like, I can incorporate it
easily, there is no need to rewrite everything using another macro  
package.


The one drawback is that my journal and collaborative papers are  
still in LateX,
because my coauthors don't speak ConTeXt, and, more significantly,  
www.arXiv.org
(preprint server) doesn't speak ConTeXt either.

Matthias


> Hi all,
>
> For the next issue of the ntg's Maps journal, Hans and I believe
> it would be nice to publish the collected responses to this simple
> question:
>
>   What do you do with ConTeXT?
>
> We think it would be nice to see all the various ways in which people
> experience ConTeXt. We are not looking for articles, in fact we really
> want just a small amount of text per user, nothing longer then you
> would normally type in an email message.
>
> One, perhaps two paragraphs that simply tell about your personal  
> experience using (or playing with) (or fighting with) (or yelling  
> at) (or staring at in bewilderment) (or revelling in) (or running  
> away from)
> ConTeXt.
>
> If you like this idea, just reply to this message. I will then
> collect and merge the responses, and finally put a pdf on-line
> somewhere.
>
> Don't be shy!
>
> Taco

Re: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[andrea valle]

I started using LaTeX just not to use MS, and because I was curious. 
Then I had that idea of creating my scores using one of the LaTeX 
packge. Good idea but nothing worked (namespace collisions, e.g.).
So I found ConTeXt, fully equipped with Metatfun. The chic solution for 
my A2 scores with pdf graphics.
Actually I use ConTeXt:
i) as my algorithmic musical composition typesetting environment
ii) for my university courses' presentations
iii) as an output device for all text-based communication.

Best

-a-


On 4 Nov 2005, at 15:49, Taco Hoekwater wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> For the next issue of the ntg's Maps journal, Hans and I believe
> it would be nice to publish the collected responses to this simple
> question:
>
>   What do you do with ConTeXT?
>
> We think it would be nice to see all the various ways in which people
> experience ConTeXt. We are not looking for articles, in fact we really
> want just a small amount of text per user, nothing longer then you
> would normally type in an email message.
>
> One, perhaps two paragraphs that simply tell about your personal 
> experience using (or playing with) (or fighting with) (or yelling at) 
> (or staring at in bewilderment) (or revelling in) (or running away 
> from)
> ConTeXt.
>
> If you like this idea, just reply to this message. I will then
> collect and merge the responses, and finally put a pdf on-line
> somewhere.
>
> Don't be shy!
>
> Taco
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> ntg-context mailing list
> ntg-context@ntg.nl
> http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
>
>
Andrea Valle
DAMS - Facoltà di Scienze della Formazione
Università degli Studi di Torino
andrea.valle@unito.it

Re: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[Patrick Gundlach]

Hi Taco, all,

>    What do you do with ConTeXT?

* use it as a reason to run contextgarden.net :-)
* Do presentations on it and with it. The tight metapost integration
  is just great too nice. 
* I love to play with new things that I think have a vital future and
  ConTeXt persuaded me right the first time I saw it on a presentation
  in Oldenburg or Dortmund (a DANTE meeting).
* prepare University papers and other pdf-based material. 

Actually, I do 50% of my typesetting with LaTeX. There are still
several things that I can't yet do with ConTeXt (some footnote layout
and table typesetting). 

I still need some time to generate test documents and ask on the lists
for the right way to layout these special cases. 

Patrick
-- 
ConTeXt wiki and more: http://contextgarden.net

Re: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[Gerben Wierda]

On Nov 4, 2005, at 15:49, Taco Hoekwater wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> For the next issue of the ntg's Maps journal, Hans and I believe
> it would be nice to publish the collected responses to this simple
> question:
>
>   What do you do with ConTeXT?

I have decided not too long ago to move my book-project form LaTeX to 
ConTeXt (it was my second try, the first one I stopped because there 
were too many problems). Reason: I dislike how LaTeX output generally 
looks (though I found memoir to be pretty good) and after reading the 
documentation I liked how ConTeXt looked as an interface.

I think those ideas are generally still correct, but using ConTeXt is 
often a wrestling match for me. The documentation is a disaster if you 
want to find out how things work other than the few actual examples 
given. Going to the source to find out what options there are is not 
optimal. E.g. can somebody tell mem how to prevent \textline to take up 
so much vertical space (and yes, I tried all the settings)? Secondly, 
writing is less conceptual than LaTeX and more visually oriented. That 
is a logical consequence of its philosophy and its layout power, but I 
really miss a more conceptual approach (as in a LaTeX "letter" class or 
"book" class) on top of ConTeXt. Lately, I have also become 
disappointed by the non-local nature of things I ran into (e.g. having 
a float in an endnote and having the float end up in the vincinity of 
the endnote marker in the main text, not in the endnote chapter), which 
are things I completely did not expect to happen. I get the feeling 
that ConTeXt is running into TeX-as-a-programming-environment 
limitations.

I stick to ConTeXt for my book project, but I keep everything else 
still in LaTeX (e.g. letters). I still think ConTeXt has the potential 
to outclass LaTeX completely, but it is not there yet. For ordinary 
non-TeXhackers like me, it is not a smooth ride.

G

Re: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[Willi Egger]

Hi,

No there is no reason to be shy! - Context has become THE tool for all 
typesetting purposes. So in my environment letters, invoices, 
addres-labels, envelop-printing, greetingcards etc are made up in 
Context together with functionality provided by Metafun. A favorite 
issue is making flowcharts for e.g. bookbinding guides, meatprocessing  
or  visualization of  the production of a tool.  Next to all this I 
write my own books which are completely made up in Context including 
imposition of the pages for folding sections in order to end up with 
sewn books. E.g I prepared a 600 pages book which includes over a 120 
drawings and metapost-figures. This book is bound as a girdle-book. - 
Whenever I am asked to give a presentation there is Context involved. - 
Why? Just because I know I can achieve what I want!

Though there is sometimes a bit of hassle after all the changes in the 
tex-tree occuring during time, Context is still the best environment I 
have ever tried. Many thanks Hans for this great environment!

Willi



Taco Hoekwater wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> For the next issue of the ntg's Maps journal, Hans and I believe
> it would be nice to publish the collected responses to this simple
> question:
>
>   What do you do with ConTeXT?
>
> We think it would be nice to see all the various ways in which people
> experience ConTeXt. We are not looking for articles, in fact we really
> want just a small amount of text per user, nothing longer then you
> would normally type in an email message.
>
> One, perhaps two paragraphs that simply tell about your personal 
> experience using (or playing with) (or fighting with) (or yelling at) 
> (or staring at in bewilderment) (or revelling in) (or running away from)
> ConTeXt.
>
> If you like this idea, just reply to this message. I will then
> collect and merge the responses, and finally put a pdf on-line
> somewhere.
>
> Don't be shy!
>
> Taco
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> ntg-context mailing list
> ntg-context@ntg.nl
> http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context

Re: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[David Wooten]

>  What do you do with ConTeXT?

I'm using ConTeXt to typeset my Ph.D. dissertation, and have used it  
over the last few years to typeset seminar papers, outlines, and so  
on. Recently I've also helped a friend typeset his monograph. He is  
an architect and painter, so this text is full of diagrams,  
paintings, fold-out pages, prose, and indexes.  ConTeXt made it  
possible to generate a really beautiful, complex book. I believe that  
there was nothing he wanted to do that we couldn't work out with  
ConTeXt.

For some reason I've always enjoyed working through the difficulties  
of using a complex program that I know should work—this reached a  
high point with plain TeX, then LaTeX, and carried on (due to my  
always being restless) to my favorite: ConTeXt. Installation of fonts  
was particularly difficult, though I can't exactly say why—things go  
much more smoothly now. I spent many hours trying and retrying,  
reading and rereading, to get OT fonts working with margin kerning.

I feel much more connection with the history and practice of  
typesetting working with ConTeXt than with any WYSIWYG system I've  
tried. 

RE: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[Nicolas Grilly]

I totally agree with the comparison you made of ConTeXt and LaTeX: With
ConTeXt, you can produce something unique. With LaTeX, your document will
look like a traditional research paper!

-----Message d'origine-----
De : ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl [mailto:ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl] De la
part de Nikolai Weibull
Envoyé : vendredi 4 novembre 2005 17:32
À : ntg-context@ntg.nl
Objet : Re: [NTG-context] Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?



Taco Hoekwater wrote:

> What do you do with ConTeXT?

I use ConTeXt for any document that I figure someone will want to print out
on paper some day.  This includes resumes, letters, and articles.  I even
considered typesetting software documentation with ConTeXt, but haven’t yet
decided if PDFs are the right medium for that kind of text.
I also typeset my master’s thesis using ConTeXt and probably spent as much
time hacking ConTeXt as I did on doing “actual work” for the content.  Not
because ConTeXt couldn’t do what I wanted, but because ConTeXt allowed me to
do anything I wanted.  Having a lot of options can be time-consuming, as you
want to try them all before deciding on the one that works best.  This is
both the good and the bad thing about ConTeXt.  You can tweak and tweak and
tweak, whereas with something like LaTeX you have a few boring designs and
you just choose the one that suits the type of document your writing.  And
your document will look like five million other research papers outh there.
I wanted something unique and ConTeXt was just the right tool for it.

        nikolai

--
Nikolai Weibull: now available free of charge at http://bitwi.se/!
Born in Chicago, IL USA; currently residing in Gothenburg, Sweden.
main(){printf(&linux["\021%six\012\0"],(linux)["have"]+"fun"-97);}
_______________________________________________
ntg-context mailing list
ntg-context@ntg.nl
http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context

Re: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[luigi.scarso]

  What do I do with ConTeXT?

   1. price-lists from  xml (DB exports) ;
   2. labels for shoes and dresses,  from xml/csv ;
   3. data sheetes (barcodes, code number and so on ), from xml/csv ;

luigi

RE: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[Nicolas Grilly]

This mini-survey is an excellent idea!

What I do with ConTeXt:

1. Produce sales and marketing reports for my customers (we are a marketing
and data mining consultancy). We have a very simple templating language
written in Python that connects to an SQL database, generates the ConTeXt
file, launchs ConTeXt and launchs Acrobat Reader to see the PDF file.

2. Produce totally personalized mailings for customers of companies we work
for. Eveything is personalized: text, background, photos, etc. We produce it
with the same templating solution (see previous point).

We think ConTeXt is the perfect solution with regard to our needs (reporting
and mailing). From our point of view, it has only two drawbacks:

- The integration of new True Type fonts is a difficult and error prone
process. One need to choose the appropriate encoding, create a .tfm file and
write a map file. In order to simplify this, a future version of ConTeXt
could natively use Unicode (no more need to choose an encoding) and could
automatically create .tfm file on demand.

- Absolute positionning is difficult. There is too many way to achieve the
same result, difficult to understand, and the resulting code is very
verbose. But I'm a beginner with ConTeXt! ;-)

Thanks for your beautiful work on ConTeXt!

Regards,

Nicolas

Re: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[Duncan Hothersall]

>    What do you do with ConTeXT?

I have a repository of learning materials which are marked up in
(DocBook-based) XML. They are in a few different languages (majority
English, with Spanish, Dutch and recently Chinese) and belong to several
different universities/training organisations on whose behalf we
maintain them. I convert the XML into ConTeX code in a batch process
using a text processing language, and then use ConTeXt to typeset the
result into books and booklets of different styles. We also produce web
versions of a lot of the materials, and I use ConTeXt (plus ImageMagick)
to create equation GIFs for maths that can't be rendered in pure HTML.

We probably have about 30 million words and 10,000 figures under
management, all held in the same XML structure, and need to run several
releases a day. As a result, all of the processes involved in
publishing, including the ConTeXt parts, are part of a batch workflow on
a server, and I rarely see the ConTeXt code itself (cos it usually just
works).

Thanks Hans!

Duncan

Re: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[Mari Voipio]

Taco Hoekwater wrote:
>   What do you do with ConTeXT?

I first learned ConTeXt because of work:
My employer makes measuring instruments for industry and I write and/or 
compile and layout the end-user manuals for those instruments. 
Traditionally, those manuals were written and edited in Word, but when 
the mass of text and the amount of figures grew, it was obvious that I 
needed a new tool before becoming a total wreck due to corrupted and 
unruly Word files. A workmate had written his thesis in TeX and started 
to look for various TeX based solutions, of which I finally chose ConTeXt.

I had to stick to Windows because of work. We first tried MikTeX, but 
that just didn't work out. Then I got TeXLive and it worked - except 
fonts.... Hours later and with the help of the email list I finally 
found the correct combination of magical lines and there it was. And 
then somebody mentioned that I could get Emacs with Context-mode in 
Windows and that's it. That's still how I run ConteXt at work, although 
now there are easier Windows options available (not to talk about the 
Mac option...). Using Emacs usually gains points from younger nerds we 
occassionally employ. :-)

ConTeXt was the first TeX based system I've ever used, but I was used to 
using styles and had done HTML (still do it by hand), so I have some 
idea of what I was getting into. Looking back I realize that I've 
learned an awful lot of things although I often feel that I don't know 
any of the things I should. Having to do something new usually results 
in curses at the beginning, but when it works, it always works. I'll 
still use Word (and equivalents) for small stuff, but when I need 
something big and printable, ConTeXt is the tool.

My real "ConTeXt moment" came last summer, when I had to redo the layout 
on one of our old Word files that had been edited by somebody else in 
between. It was disgustingly difficult to the degree that I seriously 
considered cutting and pasting the whole thing into Emacs and ConTeXting 
it to my liking!


Mari

Re: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[Nikolai Weibull]

Taco Hoekwater wrote:

> What do you do with ConTeXT?

I use ConTeXt for any document that I figure someone will want to print
out on paper some day.  This includes resumes, letters, and articles.  I
even considered typesetting software documentation with ConTeXt, but
haven’t yet decided if PDFs are the right medium for that kind of text.
I also typeset my master’s thesis using ConTeXt and probably spent as
much time hacking ConTeXt as I did on doing “actual work” for the
content.  Not because ConTeXt couldn’t do what I wanted, but because
ConTeXt allowed me to do anything I wanted.  Having a lot of options can
be time-consuming, as you want to try them all before deciding on the
one that works best.  This is both the good and the bad thing about
ConTeXt.  You can tweak and tweak and tweak, whereas with something like
LaTeX you have a few boring designs and you just choose the one that
suits the type of document your writing.  And your document will look
like five million other research papers outh there.  I wanted something
unique and ConTeXt was just the right tool for it.

        nikolai

-- 
Nikolai Weibull: now available free of charge at http://bitwi.se/!
Born in Chicago, IL USA; currently residing in Gothenburg, Sweden.
main(){printf(&linux["\021%six\012\0"],(linux)["have"]+"fun"-97);}

Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[Taco Hoekwater]

Hi all,

For the next issue of the ntg's Maps journal, Hans and I believe
it would be nice to publish the collected responses to this simple
question:

   What do you do with ConTeXT?

We think it would be nice to see all the various ways in which people
experience ConTeXt. We are not looking for articles, in fact we really
want just a small amount of text per user, nothing longer then you
would normally type in an email message.

One, perhaps two paragraphs that simply tell about your personal 
experience using (or playing with) (or fighting with) (or yelling at) 
(or staring at in bewilderment) (or revelling in) (or running away from)
ConTeXt.

If you like this idea, just reply to this message. I will then
collect and merge the responses, and finally put a pdf on-line
somewhere.

Don't be shy!

Taco