All, We are wondering why we don't get a chapter number in our header in what follows. However, if we change \setupheadnumber[chapter][-1] \setupheadnumber[chapter][0], we do get a chapter number in the running head. \setupheadnumber[chapter][0] \setupwhitespace[medium] \setupindenting[medium,yes] \def\headerskip{\hskip 1em} \def\headermarkleft{% \bold{\pagenumber} {\sc\headerskip Chapter \headnumber[chapter]\headerskip\getmarking [chapter][current]}} \def\headermarkright{% {\sc\headnumber[section]\headerskip\getmarking[section][current] \headerskip} \bold{\pagenumber}} \setupheadertexts [\headermarkleft] [] [] [\headermarkright] \setuppagenumbering [state=start, alternative=doublesided, location=, way=bytext] \chapter[chap:0]{Preliminaries} \input knuth \section{Intro to Whales} \dorecurse{10}{\input knuth\par} \section{Intro to Penguins} \dorecurse{10}{\input knuth\par} \stoptext %%% Local Variables: %%% mode: conTeXt-en %%% End: