Basically I need a few unnumbered entries at the top of the table (like abstract, acknowledgements, etc)
Rio, I handle this through using the unnumbered sectioning (\title, \subject..) and then a \definecombinedlist [content][title,chapter] Essentially you add "title" to the already predefined list or combindedlist "content". Read contextref for details. This then generates a TOC with \completecontent which includes the unnumbered sections/headers. Regarding the numbering, you might gleen that from the sample document here: http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Biochemistry_textbook It all kind of goes like this: \starttext \startfrontmatter \setuppagenumbering[conversion=romannumerals] \completecontent \stopfrontmatter \startbodymatter \setuppagenumbering[conversion=] \setuppagenumber[number=1] \title {Introduction} \dorecurse{5}{\input tufte\par} \chapter{Some Stuff} \dorecurse{5}{\input tufte\par} \stopbodymatter \stoptext best, Martin