Re: Discussion: correspondence with ConTeXt

[Henning Hraban Ramm <hraban@fiee.net>]

Am 2008-04-17 um 16:32 schrieb Wolfgang Schuster:
>> I normally use InDesign for my business letters and invoices.
> Dou you use a template for your letters.

Not an InDesign template file (.idt), but a single document (with  
master pages) for every purpose (German/Swiss/English, letter/ 
invoice, private/business) that I overwrite every time. (I save a  
copy if the matter is important.)

> LaTeX has two packages to create invoices and we could also
> have one for ConTeXt but it makes only sense to use it with LuaTeX,
> TeX's arithmetic to limited for longer calculations.

For other purposes I simply write my TeX code with a script, mostly  
only one file that contains the "dynamical" data and gets included.

E.g.
- cover for backup CD/DVDs (that script even has a GUI - it reads a  
disk; shows the directory tree, so you can select which parts you'd  
like to be visible; writes a TeX file; calls ConTeXt and opens the PDF)

- my address book (pulls and formats data from a MySQL database)

- business cards for one big company (I receive an Excel file with  
personnel data, save it as CSV and "convert" that to ConTeXt, PDF  
with one page per person gets imposed and printed on cardboard with  
pre-printed logo)

>> Another problem were different letter heads for first, odd and even
>> pages.
>
> Different header for the first and another one for the following  
> headers
> is simple and possible with my module. The option to change the layout
> for odd and even pages is currently not supported but should be
> possible but it has to be integrated in the normal interface.

My sheets have a pre-printed logo, I use the same for all pages of a  
letter.

On the first page I need address and bank data.

On even pages (back side) there's no logo, so I don't need the big  
top border.

Normally I leave out the first even page, e.g. my job application  
starts with an one-side letter, the following data (CV, references  
etc.) uses front and back page.

The application had the additional difficulty that there's the photo  
on the CV page, and I wanted the title in white *on* the photo...

At least in the "online" PDF - I used modes to produce both printed  
version (without logo, because that's pre-printed on my sheets) and  
email version (with logo)

>> (It would have been *much* easier to use InDesign for that stuff,
>> like for most other designs that I do...)
>
> This is also possible with ConTeXt because you could setup layers
> to place content dependent on left and right pages and the page layout
> could also change for left and right pages as long as you don't change
> the text width.

I used layers and setups, but I had difficulties switching them on  
and off. And what not - can't remember everything.




Greetlings from Lake Constance!
Hraban
---
http://www.fiee.net/texnique/
http://wiki.contextgarden.net
https://www.cacert.org (I'm an assurer)

___________________________________________________________________________________
If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
webpage  : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net
archive  : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/
wiki     : http://contextgarden.net
___________________________________________________________________________________