ConTeXt-- does it make sense for my needs?

ConTeXt-- does it make sense for my needs?

[Chris Lott]

Many years ago I used LaTeX quite a bit for academic work, including a
fair amount of Memoir class. Back then ConTeXt was quite new, so I
didn't mess with it much.

Now I'm back and sick of Word/etc for the documents I need to produce
as print/pdf and for interaction with colleagues. What I can't figure
out is if ConTeXt makes the most sense... and if it does, I have a few
questions...

1) My work is primarily in the humanities and end-user technologies,
with small amounts of coding. So mathematics isn't an issue. I do a
fair amount of highly academic writing (aka: many sections, citations
[handling this in a sensible way is really important], footnotes) with
the occasional need for charts, graphs, and photos. In other words,
I'm not doing the kind of layout one might associate with InDesign or
the like. I also write many paper letters (personal), poetry, fiction,
essays, and the like.

2) That said, I (obviously) have a keen interest in typography, and
that includes wanting to use some particular typefaces... I've paid
good money for many of them, so why not?

3) PDF is my primary medium of exchange, though I would like to
efficiently exchange docs with colleagues, which might mean getting
them into something they can open with their beloved Microsoft Word...
is there an RTF output for ConTeXt? this isn't super-high on my list,
but it would be nice.

4) How about X/HTML? this is my lowest level need but, again, it would be nice.

5) I generally use a Mac for everything, but I am pretty comfortable
in the shell. I've done a bit of programming in PHP. I don't mind
monkeying around, and I am interested in creating layouts that suit my
needs, but digging into internals is not for me. I used Emacs
extensively for years, now using mostly Vim (MacVim) and a variety of
GUI editors depending on what I had for breakfast that day.

So, do you think ConTeXt makes more sense than LaTeX? And *what* is
the deal with xetex? It seems to be the easiest way for accessing all
my fonts, but it also hasn't been updated for years and, since it is
tied to an old version of ConTeXt (as far as I can tell) it doesn't
seem like much of a winner.

Finally, if ConTeXt is the way to go, are there any fairly
comprehensive materials in one place for learning to use it? What I
find on the wiki seems to go from basic to advanced without a lot of
in between, and what I find on the web seems a bit fragmented. but at
this point my head is in a whirl, so I might just be missing some
obvious material.

Thanks in advance...

c
--
Chris Lott
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Re: ConTeXt-- does it make sense for my needs?

[Pontus Lurcock]

Welcome to ConTeXt! I'm a relatively new user so my answers will be
brief and partial, but I'm sure others will be able to expand on them.

On Tue 13 Dec 2011, Chris Lott wrote:

> 1) My work is primarily in the humanities and end-user technologies,
> with small amounts of coding. So mathematics isn't an issue. I do a
> fair amount of highly academic writing (aka: many sections, citations
> [handling this in a sensible way is really important], footnotes) with
> the occasional need for charts, graphs, and photos. In other words,
> I'm not doing the kind of layout one might associate with InDesign or
> the like. I also write many paper letters (personal), poetry, fiction,
> essays, and the like.

This looks to me like a good use case for ConTeXt. I've used it for a
380-page dissertation with the full complement of academic
paraphernalia: footnotes, appendices, table of figures, citations etc.
which all worked well for me. I believe that many others are using
it for similar work.

> 2) That said, I (obviously) have a keen interest in typography, and
> that includes wanting to use some particular typefaces... I've paid
> good money for many of them, so why not?

I've found ConTeXt to be more pleasant than LaTeX for setting up the
layout and typography according to my wishes. (When I used LaTeX I
generally just went with the default layout and accepted that things
would be a little ugly.) ConTeXt is also good about letting you
use your own typefaces -- particularly if they're in OpenType format.

> 3) PDF is my primary medium of exchange, though I would like to
> efficiently exchange docs with colleagues, which might mean getting
> them into something they can open with their beloved Microsoft Word...
> is there an RTF output for ConTeXt? this isn't super-high on my list,
> but it would be nice.
> 
> 4) How about X/HTML? this is my lowest level need but, again, it
> would be nice.

I know that ConTeXt supports direct XHTML output but I'm not sure how
mature it is -- I think someone else will be able to provide a more
complete answer to this.

> So, do you think ConTeXt makes more sense than LaTeX? And *what* is
> the deal with xetex? It seems to be the easiest way for accessing all
> my fonts, but it also hasn't been updated for years and, since it is
> tied to an old version of ConTeXt (as far as I can tell) it doesn't
> seem like much of a winner.

In short, there are two versions of ConTeXt: Mk II (stable, and frozen
for some time now) and Mk IV (actively developed, new betas more than
once a month). Mk II can use pdftex or xetex as the engine; Mk IV uses
luatex, which provides the ‘it just works’ font handling of xetex
alongside a number of other features (chiefly the integration of the
lua scripting language). Despite the worries that may be occasionaed
by the word ‘beta’, Mk IV is pretty stable and definitely the
recommended option these days.

Hope this helps!

Pont
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Re: ConTeXt-- does it make sense for my needs?

[Roger Mason]

Chris,

Chris Lott <chris@chrislott.org> writes:

>
> 3) PDF is my primary medium of exchange, though I would like to
> efficiently exchange docs with colleagues, which might mean getting
> them into something they can open with their beloved Microsoft Word...
> is there an RTF output for ConTeXt? this isn't super-high on my list,
> but it would be nice.

> 4) How about X/HTML? this is my lowest level need but, again, it would be nice.

One option would be to use markdown with pandoc.

http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/

  I mostly write in
ConTeXt, but if I know I must share with users of word processors then
markdown + pandoc is a good option.

Cheers,
Roger
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Re: ConTeXt-- does it make sense for my needs?

[Chris Lott]

On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 2:22 AM, Roger Mason <rmason@mun.ca> wrote:
>
>> 4) How about X/HTML? this is my lowest level need but, again, it would be nice.
>
> One option would be to use markdown with pandoc.
>
[...]
>  I mostly write in
> ConTeXt, but if I know I must share with users of word processors then
> markdown + pandoc is a good option.

This is, in fact, what I do now, with the occasional export to--and
massage in--LaTeX. And even when trying ConTeXt lately, I often start
with that route because I much prefer composing raw text in Markdown
where I can.

That said, the RTF export by Pandoc, while not perfect, is a useful
step. I hear Mojca's point about the difficulty of re-integrating RTF
or Word/etc revisions; I share that philosophy. But many of my
colleagues don't. I try to use PDF as the interchange format but many
don't like dealing with them.

None of that is insurmountable, or any knock on ConTeXt, it is just a
consideration to--well--consider. I still have many uses for something
TeX based!

Thanks for the info...

c
--
Chris Lott <chris@chrislott.org>
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Re: ConTeXt-- does it make sense for my needs?

[Bruce]

Roger Mason <rmason <at> mun.ca> writes:

> 
> Chris,
> 
> Chris Lott <chris <at> chrislott.org> writes:
> 
> >
> > 3) PDF is my primary medium of exchange, though I would like to
> > efficiently exchange docs with colleagues, which might mean getting
> > them into something they can open with their beloved Microsoft Word...
> > is there an RTF output for ConTeXt? this isn't super-high on my list,
> > but it would be nice.
> 
> > 4) How about X/HTML? this is my lowest level need but, again, it would be 
nice.
> 
> One option would be to use markdown with pandoc.
> 
> http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/
> 
>   I mostly write in
> ConTeXt, but if I know I must share with users of word processors then
> markdown + pandoc is a good option.

And to the OP's original point about academic writing, pandoc has built-in (if 
fairly new) citation processing. I would think it would work quite well for work 
in the humanities.

I would give pandoc a try and see if it fits your needs, and then use TeX in 
some form to get PDF output.

Bruce

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Re: ConTeXt-- does it make sense for my needs?

[Mojca Miklavec]

On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 07:14, Chris Lott wrote:
>
> 3) PDF is my primary medium of exchange, though I would like to
> efficiently exchange docs with colleagues, which might mean getting
> them into something they can open with their beloved Microsoft Word...
> is there an RTF output for ConTeXt? this isn't super-high on my list,
> but it would be nice.

ConTeXt only support XHTML to some extent. Now that xhtml backend is
done, creating support for rtf should be a lot easier to do than
before xhtml export was there, but unless some substantial funding is
found, it is unlikely to ever be implemented. Honestly I see no reason
why anyone would want to have RTF. Even if your colleagues get a
document in RTF and fix a few things, it won't at all be easy to
integrate that back. tex4ht most probably offers export to RTF, but
since author's death it is nearly impossible to request any
substantial feature. I bet that ConTeXt doesn't work with tex4ht any
more.

Roger suggested markdown/pandoc. It is limited to some extent, but if
you are happy with its set of features, you could probably use it for
export into both RTF and XHMTL. Of course then you can forget about
lua sugars in ConTeXt ...

> And *what* is
> the deal with xetex? It seems to be the easiest way for accessing all
> my fonts, but it also hasn't been updated for years and, since it is
> tied to an old version of ConTeXt (as far as I can tell) it doesn't
> seem like much of a winner.

In ConTeXt MKIV with LuaTeX it is just as easy to access the fonts as
it is in XeTeX. (It is only in plain LuaTeX that accessing fonts needs
some fiddling.) You get even more flexibility.

With XeTeX there are two major problems:

1.) ConTeXt never took advantages of all of its features. Ever since
LuaTeX came to the scene, support for XeTeX in ConTeXt was pretty much
frozen. XeTeX still works as well as pdfTeX, with the option to load
OTF fonts, but there is no high-level support for some other low-level
language-related features (interchar tokens, ...) or OpenType math
(but that one is broken in XeTeX anyway).

2.) no maintenance of engine (no bugfixing)

Still, XeTeX is able to handle some exotic scripts for which there is
no support in ConTeXt yet, but that shouldn't be an issue for you.

Mojca
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Re: ConTeXt-- does it make sense for my needs?

[Hagmann Jörg]

On Dec 14, 2011, at 1:31 PM, Mojca Miklavec wrote:

> On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 07:14, Chris Lott wrote:
>> 
>> 3) PDF is my primary medium of exchange, though I would like to
>> efficiently exchange docs with colleagues, which might mean getting
>> them into something they can open with their beloved Microsoft Word...
>> is there an RTF output for ConTeXt? this isn't super-high on my list,
>> but it would be nice.
> 
> ConTeXt only support XHTML to some extent. Now that xhtml backend is
> done, creating support for rtf should be a lot easier to do than
> before xhtml export was there, but unless some substantial funding is
> found, it is unlikely to ever be implemented. Honestly I see no reason
> why anyone would want to have RTF. Even if your colleagues get a
> document in RTF and fix a few things, it won't at all be easy to
> integrate that back. tex4ht most probably offers export to RTF, but
> since author's death it is nearly impossible to request any
> substantial feature. I bet that ConTeXt doesn't work with tex4ht any
> more.
> 
> Roger suggested markdown/pandoc. It is limited to some extent, but if
> you are happy with its set of features, you could probably use it for
> export into both RTF and XHMTL. Of course then you can forget about
> lua sugars in ConTeXt ...

Another possibility is to use org-mode in Emacs, export to Latex and from there to ConTeXt. In my case, the last step is accomplished by a home-brewed ruby script which covers the most common layout commands (and I'm mentioning that here in the hope that somebody who is more competent will eventually write something useful; or maybe pandoc does that, too?).

This setup allows me to have everything belonging to a project in one textfile, e.g.:

* Heading

Notes, Ideas

Lists:
- item 1
- item 2

Tables:
| one | two | three |

Dates:
** TODO <2011-12-14 Wed 15:10>
which I can collect in an agenda

* Manuscript

This section contains a manuscript which I can separately export as:
- textfile
- Latex file
- HTML file
- odt file (for LibreOffice, where it can be saved as a Microsoft doc)

More sophisticated ConTeXt commands that are not provided for can be enclosed in

#+BEGIN_LaTeX
\Context command
#+END_LaTeX

or put behind

#+LATEX: \Context command

They will show up in the final ConTeXt version, but will not, of course, be translated into html, odt etc.

** Subsection :noexport:

This section is part of "Manuscript", but will not be exported.

There are many more features, see http://orgmode.org/

Hope this helps, Jörg
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Re: ConTeXt-- does it make sense for my needs?

[Chris Lott]

On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 5:31 AM, Hagmann Jörg <joerg.hagmann@unibas.ch> wrote:
>
> Another possibility is to use org-mode in Emacs, export to Latex and
>from there to ConTeXt. In my case, the last step is accomplished by a
>home-brewed ruby script which covers the most common layout commands
>(and I'm mentioning that here in the hope that somebody who is more
>competent will eventually write something useful; or maybe pandoc does
>that, too?).
>
> This setup allows me to have everything belonging to a project in one
>textfile, e.g.:

[***]

That's quite interesting. Are you willing to share your Ruby script? I
have used org-mode a fair amount...

c
--
Chris Lott <chris@chrislott.org>
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Re: ConTeXt-- does it make sense for my needs?

[Hagmann Jörg]

On Dec 14, 2011, at 4:38 PM, Chris Lott wrote:

> On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 5:31 AM, Hagmann Jörg <joerg.hagmann@unibas.ch> wrote:
>> 
>> Another possibility is to use org-mode in Emacs, export to Latex and
>> from there to ConTeXt. In my case, the last step is accomplished by a
>> home-brewed ruby script which covers the most common layout commands
>> (and I'm mentioning that here in the hope that somebody who is more
>> competent will eventually write something useful; or maybe pandoc does
>> that, too?).
>> 
>> This setup allows me to have everything belonging to a project in one
>> textfile, e.g.:
> 
> [***]
> 
> That's quite interesting. Are you willing to share your Ruby script?

Not publicly (too embarrassed), but I'll send it to you tomorrow

Cheers, Jörg
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Re: ConTeXt-- does it make sense for my needs?

[Peter Münster]

On Wed, Dec 14 2011, Hagmann Jörg wrote:

> Another possibility is to use org-mode in Emacs, export to Latex and from
> there to ConTeXt. In my case, the last step is accomplished by a home-brewed
> ruby script which covers the most common layout commands

Have you already considered writing `org-context.el'?

-- 
           Peter
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Re: ConTeXt-- does it make sense for my needs?

[Jean Magnan de Bornier]

Le 14 décembre à 21:32:46 pmlists@free.fr (Peter Münster) écrit notamment:

| On Wed, Dec 14 2011, Hagmann Jörg wrote:
>
| > Another possibility is to use org-mode in Emacs, export to Latex and from
| > there to ConTeXt. In my case, the last step is accomplished by a home-brewed
| > ruby script which covers the most common layout commands
>
| Have you already considered writing `org-context.el'?

Yet another possibility is to use muse in emacs, for which exporting to
ConTeXt is *already* there (among many other formats).

http://wiki.contextgarden.net/ConTeXt_and_emacs-muse
-- 
Jean
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Re: ConTeXt-- does it make sense for my needs?

[Hagmann Jörg]

>> | > Another possibility is to use org-mode in Emacs, export to Latex and from
> | > there to ConTeXt. In my case, the last step is accomplished by a home-brewed
> | > ruby script which covers the most common layout commands
>> 
> | Have you already considered writing `org-context.el'?

I can't afford learning another language - not now. But it would be great if somebody did it.

Cheers, Jörg
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