Re: [NTG-context] spacing before items

Am 24.06.2020 um 23:11 schrieb Mike Cooper :

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Most of you know I’m writing at this German ConTeXt book since years... I use the incomplete version myself a lot, and I very much hope that at least every second German TeX user will buy it ;)

Awesome! Keep at it! Maybe when there's an English version, I'll still need it! :-)

Even if I did plan an English version, I don’t think it will happen... First I need to complete the German version.

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With TeX, footnotes, ToCs and indexes are beginner stuff, while they’re quite advanced with InDesign or Word. Styling your work is much easier in a visual programm – while you do it manually.

Hmmm... I don't find those things to be at all advanced in Word. ???

It’s easier in Word (or LibreOffice) than in InDesign, true. Never tried to make an index in LO/Word. But ToCs in word processors tend to get messed up, as other stuff like image placement.

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May I ask what kind of job requires you to learn ConTeXt? That’s rare.

Haha! I now work with Jan Willem Flamma (who is on this list) in the training industry. He tells me that using ConTeXt with XML will give us a modularity to our training content such that a modification in one place is more or less automatically taken care of for every course manual that uses that content. (At least that's my current understanding.) So I've been trying to learn ConTeXt and now slowly chipping away at coding one of our smaller homework chapters.

It’s at least possible to make it efficient. I never use XML input but mostly convert DOCX to ConTeXt and work in that. My main job ATM is with technical documentation on a specialized LaTeX3 system: several similar machines, several translations, i.e. modularity pays off. At a former job (newspaper prepress admin) I prepared training material on Acrobat Pro using ConTeXt; presentations and handouts in the same documents, using modes. All the best, Hraban