Wolfgang, Hans, et al, The new \startuserdata macro looks very promising, and can simplify some work I have in progress. The first question: the wiki example and the source use \userparameter{optionkey} \userparameter{anotherkey} to retrieve the value of optionkey and anotherkey. Is there a way to provide the key/value pairs in a manner that they can be retrieved with the getparameters mechanism, as: \getrawparameters [XX] [optionkey=,anotherkey=,#1] This has the added advantage of allowing the setting of a default value, as \getrawparameters [XX] [optionkey=2em,anotherkey=,#1] Or is there a reason not to use getparameters in this setting? The second question: Is there the possibility to enhance the syntax so that one can write \startMyStuff [optionalkey=value, anotherkey=value] stuff \stopMyStuff instead of \startuserdata [MyStuff] [optionalkey=value, anotherkey=value] stuff \stopuserdata Such syntactic sugar makes sweeter reading of the text, and makes clearer what is being done when nesting the macro. -- Rik Kabel