On Nov 8, 2006, at 8:35 PM, Pablo Rodríguez wrote: > > Many thanks, Thomas, for your reply. > > Maybe the issue here is that I want to learn how to do things in > ConTeXt > that I was able to do with LaTeX. But this may be the wrong > approach to > ConTeXt (because this might not be a good way to learn ConTeXt using > LaTeX as the background example).
No, I think this approach is what many users do. As long as you don't insist that you want exactly the same syntax etc, as in LaTeX :-) > > I want ConTeXt to produce mainly articles and textbooks (after > learning > that it will be easy to figure out presentations). I know some > references, but I don't know which are the best ones. > > BTW, are “ConTeXt, an excursion” and “ConTeXt the manual” good > introductions to start with ConTeXt or are they (too) outdated? Most of the basic stuff is still correct, so they should be good starters. > >> But to give you a few pointers that may or may not be useful: > > Thanks, they are useful. > >> - The first stop would be the wiki http://wiki.contextgarden.net . >> There is a section called "Sample documents" that may be a good >> starting point. >> >> - You could have a look at recent issues of the PracTeX journal; >> there is some stuff about ConTeXt in there, and it should be good for >> beginners. >> >> - Of course, the Pragma website, but I guess you know that already. >> >> - Finally, for ancient Greek, there is the ancientgreek module >> http:// >> modules.contextgarden.net/t-greek which I find superior to all Greek >> typesetting in LaTeX (because I wrote the module). > > With this particular topic, I'm not sure whether I fully understand > what > you mean. For me, input and output must be Unicode (it is the best way > to avoid problems) and this can be done with XeTeX. I don't know how > good the integration with ConTeXt is, but for me and before LuaTeX is > released in an stable version, XeTeX is the only way of dealing with > fonts in TeX. Is there something in your Greek module that cannot be > done with XeTeX? I must admit that I've been too lazy to really test XeTeX, so I may be wrong here. You can use Unicode input with the module; the only difference would be that you have to wrap all Greek passages in \localgreek{} commands or \start ... \stop pairs. I guess XeTeX provides proper hyphenation for Greek, but - the module has support for more fonts than XeTeX; - does XeTeX allow relative scaling of fonts? Anyway, only Hans and Taco know to what extent I will have to rewrite everything when luatex and support for OpenType fonts are there. > >> Don't hesitate to ask here when you have specific questions, but >> maybe that can get you started. I am a humanities guy and do all my >> work in ConTeXt... > > Actually, I knew that you were the person I wanted to ask about this. > Some time ago, I read somewhere (on the web) that you switched to > ConTeXt, after having to edit a book with Word. And then I discovered > that you teach Classics at Bonn. > > Then, if the question is not too personal (it hope not, but sorry > if it > is): how did you learn ConTeXt? Only tinkering with already existing > modules? Did you read any manuals? (Again, if this is not too > personal, > I assume that our interests in ConTeXt are similar, although I'm not a > classicist and I don't belong to the academia) > > Thanks for your help, > > > Pablo Yes, I started with already existing modules, and it took me a while (and lots of help here on the list) to write my own code. I never actually read any manual cover to cover, but the big manual is almost always open on my computer for reference. I just finished typesetting a book with ConTeXt, complete with dozens of cross-references, indexes, bibliography. Nothing very complicated, but it's wonderful to see that things work. There are still two or three problems, but they are fairly harmless. I love donig my own presentation styles with ConTeXt and metafun. The more I use ConTeXt, the more amazed I am... Hope this can inspire you a bit Thomas _______________________________________________ ntg-context mailing list ntg-context@ntg.nl http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
