Re: docs for beginners

[Hans Hagen <pragma@wxs.nl>]

At 10:21 AM 12/21/2001 -0600, Bill McClain wrote:
>I am a beginner in the TeX and ConTeXt world, and am of course dazed and
>confused. Before asking questions, I wanted to make sure I have all the
>docs in English that I should.
>
>My initial installation was from SuSE 7.2; since then I have downloaded
>newer versions (including a recent beta) from www.ntg.nl/context/.

i'm not sure if that server is already in sync with

www.pragma-pod.nl

(will be www.pragma-ade.com again soon)

>Here are the docs I most often refer to:
>
>ConTeXt the manual, January 27, 2000 (cont-enp.pdf)
>Getting Started with ConTeXt (no date, old commands?)
>(context-getting-started.pdf)
>Fonts in ConTeXt, April 2001 (mfonts-beta.pdf)

if you want a complete overview, goto the site, and follow the big picture 
link, click on the link to the pdf document, then you get 'showcase.pdf' 
which links to 'show-man.pdf', which mentions many of the manuals manuals 
(more to come).

>Am I missing anything essential for a beginner? I am getting good
>results so far, but I want to use the system properly and make life easy
>for myself.

looks likes you have neough to start (you may like the metafun manual); a 
good point for picking some details are the s-*.tex files (also described 
in show-pre.pdf as accessible from the showcase).

>My first project is the prepress work for a collection of short stories
>first published in 1895. Text only, pretty simple layout. I like
>Computer Modern Roman, but may have to find a different outline font
>more appropriate to the subject matter.

\setuptypescript[palatino][texnansi]

\setupbodyfont[palatino,10pt]

may work in your version.

Hans
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                                   Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE | pragma@wxs.nl
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