Thanks to Patrick and Hans I've a layout approaching what I want. My layout look slightly different to the one I'm posting. However this layout demonstrates my question, and uses a more available font. If you look at the output, you'll see, at the bottom of the main text area, whitespace. The whitespace exists because there isn't enough room to fit another line in the text area. My question is, can I specify an integer number of lines in the text area, and have the excess whitespace distributed evenly in my \headerdistance and \footerdistance. If this isn't possible without calculations, is it possible to log the underfull \vbox messages? So I've some feedback that I can use to adjust my \headerdistance and \footerdistance manually. %-- tryISOLayout.ctx -------------------------------------------- %output=pdf \setuppapersize[A4][A4] \setupencoding[default=texnansi] \setupbodyfont[cmr,14.4pt] \def\GoldenRatio{1.61803} \setbox0\hbox{\dorecurse{26}{\character\recurselevel}} \setuplayout[width=2.5\wd0, header=\lineheight, headerdistance=\lineheight, footer=\lineheight, footerdistance=\lineheight, height=\GoldenRatio\makeupwidth, backspace=\dimexpr(\makeupwidth/7), topspace=\dimexpr(\makeupwidth/7)] \showframe \starttext \startlinenumbering \dorecurse{5}{\input tufte} \stoplinenumbering \stoptext %-- end tryISOLayout.ctx -----------------------------------------