Broberg, Mats wrote:
Dear Sir,
For some time now, I have been looking for suitable software solutions for my publication projects. The projects are mainly books up to 500-750 pages, with alot of figures, CMYK, solid PMS or lineart images, cross references, several series of margin notes and footnotes, drop caps, list of figures, indices, tables of contents etc.
I have never used TeX or any of the wide array of macro packages, but I know from having read about it that it can solve many of my publication problems - and with a very high level of typographic quality too (which is important to me). Initially, I was looking closely at using LaTeX - mainly due to the fact that it is so widely used and has a vast number of packages for the functions I need - but when coming across your site, I think that ConTeXt may fit the bill better, since it seems to be designed in a more parameter-driven way.
However, judging from the documentation on your site, some features that I have read about in LaTeX - such as drop caps, complex headers, cross references, several series of footnotes etc (i.e. the packages "lettrine", "fancyhdr", "varioref" and "ledmac") - don't seem to be available in ConTeXt.
I assume packages like these can not be used "out of the box" when using ConTeXt, but that one needs to have someone create new packages?
I'm a bit in a hurry (need to give a workshop at the practical tex conference). The features you mentioned are present in the core system, often providing more features; opposite to latex, where you need packages, context has all things built in. More information can be get from the rather active context mailing list. I cc the mail to there, so that others can confirm this Hans ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | fax: 038 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com | www.pragma-pod.nl -----------------------------------------------------------------