Seems to work fine with columnsets: \setupbodyfont[pagella] \definecolumnset[TwoColumns][n=2] \starttext \startcolumnset [TwoColumns] \setupindenting[medium,yes] \setupalign[tolerant] \definefirstline [fancy] [alternative=line, style=\tfd] \setfirstline[fancy] \input tufte \par \setfirstline[fancy] \input ward \par \setfirstline[fancy] \input knuth \par \setfirstline[fancy] \input bryson \page \definefirstline [fancy] [alternative=word, color=darkblue, style=bold, n=2] \setfirstline[fancy] \input tufte \par \setfirstline[fancy] \input ward \par \setfirstline[fancy] \input knuth \par \setfirstline[fancy] \input bryson \page \stopcolumnset \stoptext From: josephcanedo@gmail.com Sent: Monday, October 26, 2015 3:03 PM To: ntg-context@ntg.nl Dear all, I would like to use the first line specific style magic but I cannot make it to work within 2 column text. I give a simple example (I’ve modified from previous post example on this list). Is that expected ? If you uncomment the \startcolumns and \stopcolumns below, the first line style disappears (both bigger font line and dark blue 2 first words). I use standalone ConTeXt (installed 1 week ago or so). $ context --version mtx-context | ConTeXt Process Management 0.62 mtx-context | mtx-context | main context file: c:/ConTeXt/tex/texmf-context/tex/context/base/context.mkiv mtx-context | current version: 2015.10.09 21:28 Thanks Best Joseph Canedo \setupbodyfont[pagella] \starttext % \startcolumns[n=2] \setupindenting[medium,yes] \setupalign[tolerant] \definefirstline [fancy] [alternative=line, style=\tfd] \setfirstline[fancy] \input tufte \par \setfirstline[fancy] \input ward \par \setfirstline[fancy] \input knuth \par \setfirstline[fancy] \input bryson \page \definefirstline [fancy] [alternative=word, color=darkblue, style=bold, n=2] \setfirstline[fancy] \input tufte \par \setfirstline[fancy] \input ward \par \setfirstline[fancy] \input knuth \par \setfirstline[fancy] \input bryson \page % \stopcolumns \stoptext