Right, I have a feeling that this is MetaPost related, hence the random problems with different styles. I can reproduce this now without simpleslides too, using only metapost. Here's a minimal example: Get logo_ignite.mp from: http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=VqvcWniu % slides.tex \startreusableMPgraphic{ignite} input logo_ignite; \stopreusableMPgraphic \starttext \reuseMPgraphic{ignite} \stoptext %handout.tex \setuppapersize [A4][A4] % or [A4,landscape][A4,landscape] \setuplayout [header=0pt,footer=1cm,backspace=1cm,topspace=1cm,width=middle,height=middle] \setupfootertexts [presentation---\currentdate\space---\space\pagenumber] \starttext \combinepages[slides][nx=2,ny=3,frame=on] \stoptext context slides.tex && context handout.tex && qpdf --linearize handout.pdf out.pdf results in: object stream 21 (object 31 0, file position 1547): unknown token while reading object (nullnullnullnull) ConTeXt ver: 2011.05.01 12:50 MKIV fmt: 2011.5.2 int: english/english mkiv lua stats > luatex banner - this is luatex, version beta-0.71.0-2011050213 (rev 4233) Adam