August 2025 - ntg-context

missing metadata in LMTX
by Pablo Rodriguez 18 Nov '25

18 Nov '25

Dear list, this issue has been bugging me for some time: \startbuffer[demo] <doc> <meta> <author>author</author> <title>title</title> </meta> <text> text </text> </doc> \stopbuffer \starttext \startxmlsetups xml:initialize \xmlsetsetup{#1}{code|meta|text}{xml:*} \stopxmlsetups \xmlregistersetup{xml:initialize} \startxmlsetups xml:doc \xmlflush{#1} \stopxmlsetups \startxmlsetups xml:meta \setupinteraction [author={\xmltext{#1}{/author}}, title={\xmltext{#1}{/title}}] \stopxmlsetups \startxmlsetups xml:text \xmlflush{#1} \stopxmlsetups \setupinteraction[state=start] \xmlprocessbuffer{main}{demo}{} \stoptext With LuaTeX, I get PDF metadata. With LuaMetaTeX, I cannot get them. For both, I’m using current latest (from 2024.02.27 09:21). Could anyone confirm the issue or explain me what I am missing? Many thanks for your help, Pablo

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More on accessibility/checking with Canvas
by Matthias Weber 17 Nov '25

17 Nov '25

Dear List, Using the current version, it is now pretty straightforward to create PDFs that pass VeraPDF with PDF/UA-2. Canvas (which is commonly used in the US) has an accessibility checker: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Canvas-Basics-Guide/How-do-I-use-the-Acc… The file tagging-basic.pdf scores 40% accessibility, with three complaints: This PDF does not have headings This PDF does not have a title This PDF contains text with insufficient contrast The last item I can fix. A title can be added in Canvas. Of course, the document has all the ConTeXt headings, but apparently Canvas is not able to see them (nor the title). On the Canvas page it says about headings: • Sequential headings: Heading levels should not be skipped (e.g. H2 to H4). However, the tool does not check if the first header starts with H2 or whether the headings are sequential with the rest of the content in the page. Tables do not begin with H1, which is designated for the page title. Is there a way to make the headings visible in the PDF? Thanks, Matthias (I can help with testing and give you access to a Canvas site, if needed)

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Negative font slant broken with compact fonts
by Max Chernoff 06 Oct '25

06 Oct '25

Hi, Using the latest ConTeXt (2025.02.19), negative slants are broken with compact fonts. Example document: \definefontfeature[default][default][Slant=-1] \startTEXpage Hello, world! \stopTEXpage When compiled with "context", I get the error message tex error > tex error on line 1 in file ./context-negative-slant.tex: Scale factor (-1000) should be in the range 0..100000 [...] I'm going to use 0 instead of that illegal code value. but when compiled with "context --nocompactfonts", I get the correct result. Thanks, -- Max

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Error with vskip and interaction in 20250813
by Rik Kabel 24 Sep '25

24 Sep '25

With the latest (2025-08-13) I get an error from the following: \setupinteraction [state=stop] \definelabel[Qi] [text={\hbox to \dimexpr +15pt\relax{}}, alternative=inright, way=bytext, headstyle=small, before=,after=, ] \starttexdefinition tolerant protected unexpanded startBlockQuotation \begingroup \Qi \vskip -2\lineheight\relax % \blank[-2*line] \stoptexdefinition \starttexdefinition stopBlockQuotation \endgroup \stoptexdefinition \starttexdefinition tolerant protected unexpanded startExtract \begingroup \grabbufferdata[Extract] [startExtract] [stopExtract] \stoptexdefinition \starttexdefinition stopExtract \blank[back,line] \inlinebuffer[Extract] \endgroup \blank[line] \stoptexdefinition \starttext \startBlockQuotation \startExtract \samplefile klein \par \stopExtract \stopBlockQuotation \samplefile klein\startendnote[] \samplefile klein\par \startBlockQuotation \startExtract \samplefile klein \par \stopExtract \stopBlockQuotation \stopendnote \samplefile klein \par \placenotes[endnote] \stoptext The error can be eliminated by changing interaction to stop, but I want interaction. The vskip is needed here because blank does not do the job, as you can test in the example. Is this a side effect of the new tagging changes? (A workaround that uses blank would be welcome.) -- Rik

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two issues with subcolumnsets (paralllel texts)
by Pablo Rodriguez 02 Sep '25

02 Sep '25

Dear Hans and Michael, I’m finishing a small project of a booklet with some Greek text and its facing Spanish translation. Text is typeset in 30 pages (each language, 60 in total). Everything went fine, many thanks for your excellent work. There are two issues I’m experiencing and I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. The first one is spacing before and after chapter headings, which I need to set them up as: \setuphead[chapter, newchapter, title] [before={\blank[line]\testcolumn[5]},%2st after={\blank[none, samepage]},%.5st ] Sorry, to get a line before and after, I would use `\blank[line]`. Why is `none` needed in `after`? If I have a line before and after chapter headings (instead of two, as the comments show), I get two pages wrong flushed. Sorry, but it is impossible to provide a MWE for me. Columns and subcolums are so defined: \definecolumnset [parallel] [n=1, align={lesswidows,lessclubs,lessbroken,lessorphans}] \definesubcolumnset[parallel][L][1] \definesubcolumnset[parallel][R][2] The flush mismatches are https://pdf.ousia.tk/first-mismatch.png and https://pdf.ousia.tk/second-mismatch.png. In both cases, original and translated text have the same number of lines (after chapter title, four and six, respectively). I wonder whether some widow issue for the Spanish text is moving the title and whole paragraph to the next page in both cases. Sorry for not giving an MWE, but I don’t understand why both mismatches happen, what am I missing here? Many thanks for your help, Pablo

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Flexible text flow (threaded columns) on folded card
by Marcus Christopher Ludl 02 Sep '25

02 Sep '25

Hello everyone, I am trying to create a study script in ConTeXt where each topic fits onto a folded A4 sheet in landscape orientation, so that when folded it becomes an A5 card. I would like to layout the (double-sided) card in its opened form (A4 landscape), but think of it as having four pages (A5). In this layout, I would like the text to flow across my four pages in a flexible way: - start on the left half of the front page, - then continue on the left half of the back page, - continue on the right half of the back page, - and finally continue on the right half of the front page. If working in a page layout software I would simply link four text frames in this order. Now, working in ConTeXt, I thought there could be something like threaded columns... so, I found the manual on *Columns* and played around, think that somehow \definecolumnsetarea could be useful. Alas, I couldn't even manage to make the examples look correct. And I'm failing to understand most of the parameters, as they don't seem to do what they are supposed to do (according to information found online or in the manual): Is ConTeXt suitable for this kind of workflow at all? And if so, what is the recommended mechanism to link such custom areas and have text flow across them? Below is a first minimal MWE... Of course, this is static and does not yet provide the automatic text flow I am looking for: --- \showgrid \setuppapersize[A4,landscape] \setuplayout[location=middle, marking=off] % columnset with two comumns (I'm guessing this is per page?) \definecolumnset[card][n=2] \setupcolumnset[card][distance=1.5\bodyfontsize] % trying to define a column set area \definecolumnsetarea [frontleft] [both] % what is ``both'' supposed to do? [ x=1, y=0, nx=1, ny=10, % try 10 lines for a start ] \setupcolumnsetareatext [frontleft] [both] % this doesn't seem to work at all!? Is ``both'' necessary? What should it do? [\dorecurse{1}{\input knuth\par}] % \definetextflow [myflow] % Am I supposed to define and use a textflow? \starttext \startcolumnset[card] \dorecurse{8}{\input knuth\par} \stopcolumnset \stoptext --- Could anyone point me to a proper approach or more information about this kind of layout with linked text areas in ConTeXt (LMTX)? Thanks a lot in advance! Best regards, Marcus

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Wiki
by Thangalin 02 Sep '25

02 Sep '25

Hi there! I tried creating a web page for the \xmldisplayverbatim command, but the wiki didn't agree. [9dbd98211f60ced56c09a40f] /index.php?title=Command/xmldisplayverbatim&action=submit Error from line 121 of /var/www/ contextgarden.net/wiki/htdocs/extensions/ConTeXtXML/includes/ConTeXtXMLCont…: Class "MediaWiki\Extension\ConTeXtXML\ParserOutput" not found Backtrace: #0 /var/www/ contextgarden.net/wiki/htdocs/extensions/ConTeXtXML/includes/ConTeXtXMLCont… : Please fix. Thank you!

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Old (deprecated?) MKIV math behavior
by Rogers, Michael K 01 Sep '25

01 Sep '25

I update ConTeXt rarely, usually once a year. Some years I forget. I upgraded via TeXLive this summer. The following sorts of things worked before that, and now they don’t: ${x \over y}$ ${n \choose k}$ ${\buildrel \text{Parts} \over =}$ etc. I haven’t discovered how to get back an old enough version in which these things would work. Is it possible? Thanks, Michael

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Positioning a formula number
by Fabrice Couvreur 31 Aug '25

31 Aug '25

Hi, In the example below, the formula number is not located on the baseline of the last equality. How can I make this happen ? Thanks for your help. Fabrice \starttext \startplaceformula \startformula \startalign \NC f(x) \EQ a\left(x²+\frac{b}{a}x\right)+c\NR \NC \EQ a\left(\left(x+\frac{b}{2a}\right)^2-\frac{b²}{4a²}\right)+c\NR \NC \EQ a\left(x+\frac{b}{2a}\right)^2-\frac{b²}{4a}+c\NR \NC \EQ a\left(x+\frac{b}{2a}\right)^2-\frac{b²}{4a}+\frac{4ac}{4a}\NR \NC \EQ a\left(x+\frac{b}{2a}\right)^2-\frac{b²-4ac}{4a}\NR \NC \EQ a\left(x+\frac{b}{2a}\right)^2-\frac{\Delta}{4a}\NR \stopalign \stopformula \stopplaceformula \stoptext

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Spacing for xmlflushspacewise
by Thangalin 30 Aug '25

30 Aug '25

Hi, I was a little surprised to see that the spaces for most monospace fonts are not respected when using \xmlflushspacewise (see code below): https://i.ibb.co/C5LPVKsH/monospace-table.png Using \xmlverbatim displays as expected. For my actual document, I cannot use \xmlprettyprint because it generates an error. Is \xmlflushspacewise supposed to honour the glyph metrics of the space character for monospace fonts? mtx-context | current version: 2025.08.21 23:32 % ---- 8< ---- \startbuffer[test] <?xml version="1.0"?> <document><pre> |aaa|bbb|ccc| |---|---|---| | 1 | 2 | 3 | | 4 | 5 | 6 | | 7 | 8 | 9 | </pre></document> \stopbuffer \startxmlsetups xml:setup \xmlsetsetup{\xmldocument}{*}{-} \xmlsetsetup{\xmldocument}{document|pre}{xml:*} \stopxmlsetups \xmlregistersetup{xml:setup} \startxmlsetups xml:document \startdocument \xmlflush{#1} \stopdocument \stopxmlsetups \define[2]\Verbatim{ \startxmldisplayverbatim \setupbodyfont[#1] \xmlflushspacewise{#2} \stopxmldisplayverbatim } \startxmlsetups xml:pre \Verbatim{TextFontIN}{#1} \Verbatim{TextFontRM}{#1} \Verbatim{TextFontSP}{#1} \Verbatim{TextFontFC}{#1} \Verbatim{TextFontLM}{#1} \stopxmlsetups \definefontfamily [TextFontSP] [tt] [Source Code Pro] \definefontfamily [TextFontRM] [tt] [Roboto Mono] \definefontfamily [TextFontIN] [tt] [Inconsolata] \definefontfamily [TextFontFC] [tt] [Fira Code] \definefontfamily [TextFontLM] [tt] [Luxi Mono] \usetypescript[TextFont] \xmlprocessbuffer{main}{test}{} % ---- 8< ---- Aside, should this code be returning an error? mtx-context | fatal error: return code: 1 Thank you!

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