Re: newbie questions

["George N. White III" <gnwiii@gmail.com>]

On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 12:38 PM, Sanja C. <sanjac@rocketmail.com> wrote:
> Hi ConTeXt community.
>
> While looking for free (preferably open-source) tools which I could use for
> typesetting a planned internal newsletter-booklet for a non-profit organization
> (to be released in printed form in regular intervals - each issue with new
> content of course, but same/similar style), I came across ConTeXt.
>
> I usually use Inkscape and various WYSIWYG word processing software for
> designing and layouting flyers/leaflets/etc., but in this case (many pages,
> varying and regularly updated content, consistent style) I'm afraid those tools
> simply don't cut in in terms of professional-quality typesetting capabilities
> and content//style separation.
>
> So programmatic typesetting might be the answer. I thought of LaTeX first, but I
> read from various sources that using ConTeXt might be easier for typesetting
> book-like things, especially if you want to design your own styles.
>
> Before I delve in deeper, though, I would like to ask you (the ConTeXt
> community) some questions:
>
> a) Is the ConTeXt project alive? The newest PDF documentation I could find seems
> to be from 2007; most of it is dated 2003 or older.

It is very active, as you will soon see from the list traffic.

> b) Do you think that ConTeXt is an appropriate tool for the use case I described
> (be honest please ;-)), and easy enough to learn for someone with almost no TeX
> experience?
> The requirements are:
>  - Support for elaborate, colorful, graphics-heavy design, which I would
> preferably create in Inkscape and then export as vector graphics (or port to
> ConTeXt's own graphics language) as necessary.
>
>  - Ability to write a style *once* (with reasonable effort), and "outsource" it
> to an external file (or files), so that for each new release of the newsletter,
> only a simple content TeX file (or files) with minimal amount of markup is
> required (which e.g. even a non-tech-savvy writer/editor could edit)
>  - Ability to easily include pictures in the content, and let the typesetting
> engine automatically position them (either in the main text area with text
> floating around them, or in special margin areas).
>
> c) Are there any full-featured examples of design-heavy booklets/magazines/etc
> created with ConTeXt., for which the full source code is publicly available?
> That would be *really* helpful in order to assess how much work would be
> required, and also to learn how exactly it's done in practice.

Have a look at <http://pragma-ade.com/showcase.pdf>.  If you can find
a sufficiently insecure system (the Windows XP system at my work
qualifies) you will be able to browse into the sample documents.  I
think the Magazines entry deals with complex
layouts.

I'm involved with a scientific report series.  We hired a professional
who did the initial design in Pagemaker.  We then implemented this in
ConTeXt, mostly for the maths support, but the page layout was
superior too.  The implementation was a big job, but the professional
did a lot of the work and was very pleased at the quality of the
result.  It was not as hard as writing the LaTeX style we now use
(because authors already use LaTeX for journal articles but found it
difficult to get context working).

For projects that don't need maths we tend to use In Design or other
commercial tools, partly because printers understandably don't like
dealing with unknown software.  It takes some time to train the
printers to trust ConTeXt or LaTeX produced documents, and then the
company goes under or is bought out by a bigger company and you have
to start over.

-- 
George N. White III <aa056@chebucto.ns.ca>
Head of St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia
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