Sorry. me again...and I have been all over the wiki, mailing lists and manuals... I have this: \setlayer [progresssteps] % name of the layer [hoffset=904 px, voffset= 28\nuggetnumber px] % placement (from upper left corner of the layer) {\stepstack} % the actual contents of the layer And I am hoping that as I increase nuggetnumber the voffset of the layer will be 28*nuggetnumber I am setting nuggetnumber like this for the moment: \def \nuggetnumber{3} (in the other dev document it is the result of counter, so set dynamically) and this in the text \nuggetnumber which compiles to '3', so I assume the assignment is good to go. varying both nuggetnumber and the scale factor (28) shift the layer up and down, but not in a way that suggests that 28\nuggetnumber is being evaluated as a product (so a scale factor of 7 and a nuggetnumber of 2 do not give the same output as a scale factor of 2 and a nuggetnumber of 7). So I am led to think that there is something in the evaluating that is going wrong - data types / units? (if I hard code in the results I am expecting, say 28 px, 56 px or 84 px then I get exactly what I want... Thanks, as ever (Same result in ConTEXt ii or iv) Ian