Randolph Bertin wrote:
I am typesetting books, primarily text and images. My original background is Quark/InDesign, but quite recently, I decided to look into TeX/LaTeX (LaTeX because that is just what most of the TeX references refer to). I first spent some time trying to learn LaTeX and although I was able to accomplish a number of my desired goals, I began to run into some problems related to maintaining text on a baseline grid. When searching for solutions, I came across a reference to ConTeXt. My first impressions are that ConTeXt looks great, and would handle most of what I would like to accomplish with a nice uniform approach. I haven't explored many of the features I will need to use, but am trying to read the manuals and listserv archives and basically trying things out to see how things function.
So, I am sure I will have a number of questions that will later turn out to seem obvious (often the case, I guess for the uninitiated). Eventually, I might even be able to answer a couple of questions....
But, to begin, one thing I would like to do for a project I am working on is to wrap continuous text around an image (placed on one side of the main text body), and I am encountering a little difficulty.
The basic situation in my document is that the figure can float, to be inserted at the next available spot, placed at the left or right margin, with text above (if there is space), to the side, and below (if there is space).
First, it appears that TeX, LaTeX and ConTeXt can only place a figure next to text at the beginning of a paragraph. Is this correct?
Second, using ConText, when I use \placefigure, if there is enough space on a page, it appears to place it, and wrap text around the side. Everything looks fine. But, if there is not enough space remaining on the page, the remainder of the page is left blank, and then the figure is placed at the beginning of the next page, with text wrapped around it. (That is both what I observed, and also I read in the "Details" document as the expected behavior). If I use \placefloat, if there is not enough space remaining on the page, the text will continue printing on the page and the float will be placed on the next page, BUT without any text to the side of it.
What I would like is to be able to combine these two behaviors when placing a floating figure: If there is enough space on the page, it would place the figure there and wrap text around it (as it currently does for \placefigure). If there is not enough space, it will 'float' the figure and continue with the text on the current page (as it does with \placefloat, but not with \placefigure) and insert the figure on a subsequent page when there is space, wrapping the text around the figure at that point (again as it does with \placefigure, but does not seem to do with \placefloat).
Is it possible to do this using a current set of ConTeXt control sequences and maybe I am just missing something? If not, is this something that can be implemented? (I don't have any experience with lower level TeX macro programming). All of what I am looking for is already there, but not all in one control sequence.
you can move the graphic with: \starttext \hangsidefloat[3] \placefigure[left]{}{} \input zapf \input zapf \input zapf \movesidefloat[3*line] \placefigure[left]{}{} \input zapf \input zapf \input zapf \stoptext this is still page bound \movesidefloat[x=10pt,y=-30pt] also works, as does: \placefigure[left,3*line]{}{} \input zapf \input zapf \input zapf and in the next version: \placefigure[left,3*hang]{}{} \input zapf \input zapf \input zapf will work as well (i cannot post a patch because i first need to upload the version with the french interface) Hans