Letters in ConTeXt

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Rolf Marvin Bøe Lindgren

31 Jan 2007 31 Jan '07

12:29 p.m.

the one thing that stops my total conversion to ConTeXt is my lack of understanding of, er, context. I've studied the manual "Corresponcence" which presupposes far better understanding of ConTeXt than I currently possess. I imagine though that a useful short working example would help. anyone? -- Rolf Lindgren roffe@extern.uio.no

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luigi scarso

31 Jan 31 Jan

4:39 p.m.

On 1/31/07, Rolf Marvin Bøe Lindgren wrote:

...

the one thing that stops my total conversion to ConTeXt is my lack of understanding of, er, context. I've studied the manual "Corresponcence" hmm, where is this manual ?

luigi

Rolf Marvin Bøe Lindgren

6:16 p.m.

On 31. jan. 2007, at 5:39, luigi scarso wrote:

...

On 1/31/07, Rolf Marvin Bøe Lindgren wrote:

...
the one thing that stops my total conversion to ConTeXt is my lack of understanding of, er, context. I've studied the manual "Corresponcence" hmm, where is this manual ?

http://www.pragma-ade.com/general/manuals/xcorresp.pdf -- Rolf Lindgren roffe@extern.uio.no

Idris Samawi Hamid

7:13 p.m.

On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 11:16:21 -0700, Rolf Marvin Bøe Lindgren wrote:

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On 31. jan. 2007, at 5:39, luigi scarso wrote:

...
On 1/31/07, Rolf Marvin Bøe Lindgren wrote:

...
the one thing that stops my total conversion to ConTeXt is my lack of understanding of, er, context. I've studied the manual "Corresponcence"

Well, this is apparently an experimental module, as the 'x' signifies and the 'todo's at the end... But the best thing to do is try the examples starting on page 12, look at chapters 3 and 4, and ignore the xml stuff. Best Idris

...

http://www.pragma-ade.com/general/manuals/xcorresp.pdf

-- Professor Idris Samawi Hamid Department of Philosophy Colorado State University Fort Collins, CO 80523 -- Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/

Idris Samawi Hamid

7:55 p.m.

On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 12:13:22 -0700, Idris Samawi Hamid wrote:

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...
...
On 1/31/07, Rolf Marvin Bøe Lindgren wrote:

...
the one thing that stops my total conversion to ConTeXt is my lack of understanding of, er, context. I've studied the manual "Corresponcence"

Well, this is apparently an experimental module, as the 'x' signifies and the 'todo's at the end...

But the best thing to do is try the examples starting on page 12, look at chapters 3 and 4, and ignore the xml stuff.

Just tested: I think this module is not available, it presently calls \texmf\tex\plain\base\letter.tex which is wrong. m-letter.tex is nowhere to be found Hans, is the actual module available? Anyway, http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Letter_style may also be consulted. Best Idris -- Professor Idris Samawi Hamid Department of Philosophy Colorado State University Fort Collins, CO 80523 -- Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/

David Rogers

8:08 p.m.

The very simple example code given on Page 11 does not fail on my machine, though I don't know where to place my information. David

Rolf Marvin Bøe Lindgren

9:30 p.m.

On 31. jan. 2007, at 9:08, David Rogers wrote:

...

The very simple example code given on Page 11 does not fail on my machine, though I don't know where to place my information.

yes, that's one of the issues I have with the documentation :) -- Rolf Lindgren roffe@extern.uio.no

David Rogers

9:50 p.m.

On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 22:30:27 +0100, Rolf Marvin Bøe Lindgren wrote:

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On 31. jan. 2007, at 9:08, David Rogers wrote:

...
The very simple example code given on Page 11 does not fail on my machine, though I don't know where to place my information.

yes, that's one of the issues I have with the documentation :)

I'm starting to think that if I make an XML contacts file as described, I might be able to get it to work. I promise to post anything useful I find, unless Hans or someone explains it first. David

Idris Samawi Hamid

10:04 p.m.

On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 14:50:07 -0700, David Rogers wrote:

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On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 22:30:27 +0100, Rolf Marvin Bøe Lindgren wrote:

...
On 31. jan. 2007, at 9:08, David Rogers wrote:

...
The very simple example code given on Page 11 does not fail on my machine, though I don't know where to place my information.

check the log: it will probably say something about a missing module...

...

...
yes, that's one of the issues I have with the documentation :)

I'm starting to think that if I make an XML contacts file as described, I might be able to get it to work. I promise to post anything useful I find, unless Hans or someone explains it first.

Well, m-letter is not in the distribution so... This has been noted before eg http://archive.contextgarden.net/message/20060115.191911.d354b86c.en.html Idris -- Professor Idris Samawi Hamid Department of Philosophy Colorado State University Fort Collins, CO 80523 -- Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/

David Rogers

10:21 p.m.

On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 15:04:26 -0700, Idris Samawi Hamid wrote:

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On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 14:50:07 -0700, David Rogers wrote:

...
On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 22:30:27 +0100, Rolf Marvin Bøe Lindgren wrote:

...
On 31. jan. 2007, at 9:08, David Rogers wrote:

...
The very simple example code given on Page 11 does not fail on my machine, though I don't know where to place my information.

check the log: it will probably say something about a missing module...

...
...
yes, that's one of the issues I have with the documentation :)

I'm starting to think that if I make an XML contacts file as described, I might be able to get it to work. I promise to post anything useful I find, unless Hans or someone explains it first.

Well, m-letter is not in the distribution so...

This has been noted before eg

http://archive.contextgarden.net/message/20060115.191911.d354b86c.en.html

Thanks for the explanation. But why does the code given in the right-hand margin of Page 11 in that little manual not fail? Where is it getting its place-holder data from? David

Idris Samawi Hamid

10:57 p.m.

On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 15:21:23 -0700, David Rogers wrote:

...

On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 15:04:26 -0700, Idris Samawi Hamid wrote:

...

...
check the log: it will probably say something about a missing module...

Well, m-letter is not in the distribution so...

This has been noted before eg

http://archive.contextgarden.net/message/20060115.191911.d354b86c.en.html

Thanks for the explanation.

But why does the code given in the right-hand margin of Page 11 in that little manual not fail? Where is it getting its place-holder data from?

It does fail but compilation does not; however ConTeXt is setup so that a missing module does not necessarily stop processing; it just complains in the log "module m-letter not found". Idris -- Professor Idris Samawi Hamid Department of Philosophy Colorado State University Fort Collins, CO 80523 -- Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/

Rolf Marvin Bøe Lindgren

8:14 p.m.

On 31. jan. 2007, at 8:13, Idris Samawi Hamid wrote:

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On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 11:16:21 -0700, Rolf Marvin Bøe Lindgren wrote:

...
On 31. jan. 2007, at 5:39, luigi scarso wrote:

...
On 1/31/07, Rolf Marvin Bøe Lindgren wrote:

...
the one thing that stops my total conversion to ConTeXt is my lack of understanding of, er, context. I've studied the manual "Corresponcence"

Well, this is apparently an experimental module, as the 'x' signifies and the 'todo's at the end...

But the best thing to do is try the examples starting on page 12, look at chapters 3 and 4, and ignore the xml stuff.

certainly, and back in the days when I was a childless and carefree student I would have done just that, or I would have offered what I had to anyone who had asked. I'm certainly not asking for anybody to do my homework, just hoping that somebody had something lying around that could be made instructive fairly quickly. -- Rolf Lindgren roffe@extern.uio.no

Idris Samawi Hamid

8:34 p.m.

Looking through the archives it appears that the m-letter module has been withdrawn or was never released; it's not part of theConTeXt distro. On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 13:14:32 -0700, Rolf Marvin Bøe Lindgren wrote:

...

-- Professor Idris Samawi Hamid Department of Philosophy Colorado State University Fort Collins, CO 80523 -- Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/

John R. Culleton

10:35 p.m.

On Wednesday 31 January 2007 15:34, Idris Samawi Hamid wrote:

...

Looking through the archives it appears that the m-letter module has been withdrawn or was never released; it's not part of theConTeXt distro.

On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 13:14:32 -0700, Rolf Marvin Bøe Lindgren wrote:

Well, there is always Knuth's letterformat.tex. I still use it. :<) -- John Culleton Able Indexing and Typesetting Precision typesetting (tm) at reasonable cost. Satisfaction guaranteed. http://wexfordpress.com

luigi scarso

1 Feb 1 Feb

8:20 a.m.

...

http://www.pragma-ade.com/general/manuals/xcorresp.pdf ok, thanks. (it's time to re-read all docs, i believe) Perhaps it's better to make a folder with unfinished stuff, to avoid confusions.

John (john@wexfordpress.com) gave me a good hint when he said to download mailing list, so I found http://www.ntg.nl/pipermail/ntg-context/2004/008068.html http://www.ntg.nl/pipermail/ntg-context/2004/008044.html

Aditya Mahajan

6:11 a.m.

On Wed, 31 Jan 2007, Rolf Marvin Bøe Lindgren wrote:

...

the one thing that stops my total conversion to ConTeXt is my lack of understanding of, er, context. I've studied the manual "Corresponcence" which presupposes far better understanding of ConTeXt than I currently possess. I imagine though that a useful short working example would help.

anyone?

I do not use the m-letter module because it is too complicated for my needs. If you think about it, a letter is usually something fairly straight-forward. I have a personal p-letter.tex module which does something like <setup layout> <setup fonts> <setup subject> \setuppagenumbering[location={bottom,middle}] \setupwhitespace[big] \setupindenting[medium] \setupblank[big] Yes, that's it! In the letter, I manually write the typesetting commands in the letter \starttext \startlines To, Whoever ... .... \stoplines \blank[3*big] \startlines From, Me .... \stoplines \blank[3*big] Date: \currentdate \blank[3*big] \subject Whatever Dear ..., \setupindenting[yes,next] My letter in differnt paragraphs \setupindeinting[no] \blank[2*big] \startlines Your Sincerely \blank[big] Name... \stoplines \stoptext This is fairly primitive, but I only need to write a formal letter once every blue moon, and this setup works for me. If you have more frequent need, then you may want more structure in the letters. If you can finalize how you want to input your letter, creating a personal module is not that hard with ConTeXt. I think that this is one of ConTeXt's strongest points. In LaTeX, you first find a package, then you see that the package does not do 100% of what you want, then you read the code of the package and try to figure out how to make it do what you want. With ConTeXt, once you know what you want, it is fairly straight forward to write your personal module to achieve that. But of course, ConTeXt needs more modules for things like journals and conferences which have specific layout requirements. Aditya

Rolf Marvin Bøe Lindgren

9:41 a.m.

On 1. feb. 2007, at 7:11, Aditya Mahajan wrote:

...

I do not use the m-letter module because it is too complicated for my needs. If you think about it, a letter is usually something fairly straight-forward. I have a personal p-letter.tex module which does

Oh, it's no problem for me to set up a simple letter style. Indeed, the ConTeXt wiki offers several. My question though is that I want to learn how to use the one documented, as it were, in the Correspondence manual, and a short working example would help understand the manual. -- Rolf Lindgren roffe@extern.uio.no

John R. Culleton

2:29 p.m.

On Thursday 01 February 2007 01:11, Aditya Mahajan wrote:

...

On Wed, 31 Jan 2007, Rolf Marvin Bøe Lindgren wrote:

...
the one thing that stops my total conversion to ConTeXt is my lack of understanding of, er, context. I've studied the manual "Corresponcence" which presupposes far better understanding of ConTeXt than I currently possess. I imagine though that a useful short working example would help.

anyone?

I do not use the m-letter module because it is too complicated for my needs. If you think about it, a letter is usually something fairly straight-forward. I have a personal p-letter.tex module which does something like

<setup layout>

<setup fonts>

<setup subject>

\setuppagenumbering[location={bottom,middle}]

\setupwhitespace[big] \setupindenting[medium] \setupblank[big]

Yes, that's it! In the letter, I manually write the typesetting commands in the letter

\starttext

\startlines To, Whoever ... .... \stoplines

\blank[3*big]

\startlines From, Me .... \stoplines

\blank[3*big]

Date: \currentdate

\blank[3*big]

\subject Whatever

Dear ...,

\setupindenting[yes,next]

My letter

in differnt paragraphs

\setupindeinting[no]

\blank[2*big]

\startlines Your Sincerely \blank[big] Name... \stoplines

\stoptext

This is fairly primitive, but I only need to write a formal letter once every blue moon, and this setup works for me. If you have more frequent need, then you may want more structure in the letters. If you can finalize how you want to input your letter, creating a personal module is not that hard with ConTeXt. I think that this is one of ConTeXt's strongest points. In LaTeX, you first find a package, then you see that the package does not do 100% of what you want, then you read the code of the package and try to figure out how to make it do what you want. With ConTeXt, once you know what you want, it is fairly straight forward to write your personal module to achieve that. But of course, ConTeXt needs more modules for things like journals and conferences which have specific layout requirements.

Aditya _______________________________________________ ntg-context mailing list ntg-context@ntg.nl http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context

I use letterformat.tex from _The TeXBook_. . Why not? The tricky part is setting up the standard letterheads. Writing the letter then becomes very simple. Here is a live example with some hiding of the real identity: \magnification=\magstep1 \input letterformat \dogletterhead \address Mr.Nobody 17 Nowhere Street Winchester, VA 22601 \body <put body text here>. \closing Best wishes, John \& Peggy Culleton \annotations encl: Pedigree, two copies of contract. \endletter %\makelabel \bye ----------------------------------- With very minor modifications, such as substituting \noheaderandfooterlines for \nopagenumbers and a similar replacement for \headline etc. in letterformat.tex it could be made to run under Context too. I just ran the above example in Context. I use whatever tool gets the job done. -- John Culleton Able Indexing and Typesetting Precision typesetting (tm) at reasonable cost. Satisfaction guaranteed. http://wexfordpress.com

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Aditya Mahajan
David Rogers
Idris Samawi Hamid
John R. Culleton
luigi scarso
Rolf Marvin Bøe Lindgren