Came up with some solution using lua, probably not the most elegant one but seems to work. Attached below in case it’s of any interest for anyone. \setupheads[ align=center] \startluacode userdata = userdata or {} userdata.test = function(n) local breakline = n:find([[\\]]) local modified if breakline then modified = [[{\tfa ]] .. n:sub(1, breakline + 1) .. '}' .. n:sub(breakline + 2) else modified = [[{\tfa ]] .. n .. '}' end context(modified) end \stopluacode \define[1]\MyCmd{\ctxlua{userdata.test('\luaescapestring{#1}')}} \setuphead[subject][style=\tf, deeptextcommand=\MyCmd] \starttext \startsubject[title={A very very very long title for subject\\ we know will not fit in single line of output but\\ A very very very long title for subject we know will not fit\\ in single line of output}] Some text. \stoptext From: josephcanedo@gmail.com Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2015 7:19 PM To: ntg-context@ntg.nl Hello all, Perhaps a more meaningful example, actually I explicitly break lines Inside title text. \setuphead[subject][align=center] \starttext \startsubject[title={First title line\\ \tf eventual second line}] % second line same size as normal text Howto ? Some text here \stopsubject \stoptext I tried with \tf but it does not change the size of text in the title after it. (In LaTeX I used \normalsize) Is there any solution that would allow to type: \startsubject[title={First title line\\ eventual second line}] and output second line in smaller text than the first one (without adding any font modifier in the title if possible) ? Many thanks for any help Best regards Joseph From: josephcanedo@gmail.com Sent: Tuesday, October 27, 2015 1:29 PM To: ntg-context@ntg.nl Dear all, Still playing with \setfirstline, I was wondering how to apply it for headings as well ? Naive sample below does not work for the subject title, most probably because headings/titles have different processing than normal paragraphs. \definecolumnset[TwoColumns][n=2] \definefirstline[bbigline][alternative=line, style=\tfa] \starttext \startcolumnset [TwoColumns] \startsubject[title={\setfirstline[bbigline] A very very very long title for subject we know will not fit in single line of output}] % first line with different style as in the text below ? \setfirstline[bbigline] Some paragraph content here. First line should be printed bigger than rest of lines. \stopsubject \stopcolumnset \stoptext Thanks a lot, Best regards Joseph Canedo