Hi Hans, under certain circumstances document backgrounds (overlays) are lost. A minimum real live example is this: \definelayer[test] \setuppagenumbering[alternative=doublesided] \setupmakeup[standard][doublesided=empty] % background is lost %\setupmakeup[standard][doublesided=yes] % background is visible \startsetups[test] \setlayer[test][hoffset=4cm,voffset=7cm]{\tfd text} \stopsetups \setupbackgrounds[page][background=test,setups=test] \starttext \startstandardmakeup text \stopstandardmakeup test \stoptext With 'doublesided=yes' the background is visible but with 'doublesided=empty' no background is shown. I spend a few hours to find the reason for this and i was able to produce a shorter example: \defineoverlay[test][\tfd text] \setupbackgrounds[page][background=test,state=repeat] \starttext text\page\page[blank]\null\page %\chardef\pageornamentstate\zerocount text \stoptext The problem is that '\page[blank]' sets \pageornamentstate at global level to '1'. Wolfgang