Should \setuppapersize automatically assume the same typesetting and printing papersizes, if no optional argument is given? Then you could do \setuppapersize[letter] instead of \setuppapersize[letter][letter] Right now \setuppapersize[letter] \starttext hello \stoptext produces a mixture of letter and A4 dimensions: $ texexec --pdf a > /dev/null && pdfinfo a.pdf | grep 'Page size' Page size: 612 x 841.89 pts Shouldn't it be either 612x792 (letter) or 595.276 x 841.89 pts (A4)? tex : pdfeTeX, 3.141592-1.21a-2.2 (Web2C 7.5.4) context : ver: 2006.03.25 13:21 cont-en : ver: 2006.03.25 13:21 fmt: 2006.4.11 mes: english It might be because I once ran 'texconfig' to set the default papersize to letter? -Sanjoy