List,

Can somebody suggest an export-friendly mechanism to put fixed lines into the margin? Use case: I am reproducing a 17th century text with marginal footnotes. I do not need a solution that works with both pdf and xml, but there is less mode fiddling if it does.

This example:

\setupbackend     [export=yes]
\starttext
\subject{\tex{startlines} in margin}
\startparagraph
\margintext{\startlines
abc def
ghi
jkl
mno pqr
\stoplines}
\input knuth
\stopparagraph

\subject{\tex{crlf} in margin}
\startparagraph
\margintext{abc def\crlf
ghi\crlf
jkl\crlf
mno pqr}
\input knuth
\stopparagraph

\subject{\tex{\textbackslash} in margin}
\startparagraph
\margintext{abc def\\
ghi\\
jkl\\
mno pqr}
\input knuth
\stopparagraph

\subject{\tex{startlines} in main flow}
\startparagraph
\startlines
abc def
ghi
jkl
mno pqr
\stoplines
\input knuth 
\stopparagraph
\stoptext

generates the following xml with \startlines and \crlf:

<margintext detail="margintext" chain="margintext"><lines detail="lines" chain="lines"><line>abc def ghi jkl mno pqr</line></lines> </margintext>

and  no <lines> element at all with \\, while it generates proper lines in the main flow:

<lines detail="lines" chain="lines"><line>abc def</line><line>ghi</line><line>jkl</line><line>mno pqr</line></lines>