Thank you, Taco, for the fix *and* the helpful explanation.

The file now works (and I can now put this project to bed!)

Alan

On Wed, Sep 30, 2020 at 7:38 AM Taco Hoekwater <taco@elvenkind.com> wrote:

> Hi Alan,
>
> > On 30 Sep 2020, at 12:50, Alan Bowen <bowenalan03@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > he page counter does not increase in the first iteration an PDf
> inclusion but seems to work properly after that. Have attached a sample
> file (69K) that will serve to show the problem—at least, on my machine.
>
> It is not the iteration itself. Try with another pdf with more than 2
> pages and you
> will see that it happens in the first page(s).
>
> The problem is that you are not giving ConTeXt a fair chance to update the
> page number,
> because a series of \vbox to \paperheight {}’s cannot cleanly be broken
> into separate
> pages. The solution is to use
>
> \dorecurse{\noffigurepages}
>    {\vbox to \paperheight
>
> {\vskip-\dimexpr\headerheight+\headerdistance+\topspace\relax
>                  \hbox to \hsize
>          {\hskip-\backspace
>                 \layeredtext[]
>                         [boffset=3pc]
>                 {\red\userpagenumber}
>                 {\externalfigure[HannahBW.pdf][page=#1]}%
>           \hss}%
>                 \vss}\page
>   }
>
> where the extra \page command allows ConTeXt to properly process the page
> breaks.
>
> Best wishes,
> Taco
>
>
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