Thanks Patrick for the example. It's a start (the A4 typesetting area looks good). Now I need to flesh out some of the details. If I explain how I'd go about it using Hans diagram on pg 30 of the english ConTeXt manual, maybe I'll make myself clearer (well at least clearer than my initial correspondence). 1) define A4 typesetting area width = 2.5 times the length of the lowercase alphabet in the default font -- lucida-bright at 12pt height = golden-ratio times width this is the inclusive area header + text + footer. 2) If you look at the figure on page 30 of the english ConTeXt manual, Hans has drawn a hatched area called "footer". I'd like the distance between the baseline of the last line of text in the main text area and the baseline of the footer to be equal to two times the leading of the main font in white space plus the leading of the footer line: footer = 2 * \baselineskip whitespace + \baselineskip footer text 3) If you look at the hatched area on page 30 called "header" I'd like the distance from the top of the header to baseline of line 1 of the main text to be the twice the leading of the main font in white space plus the height of a one strutbox. header = \baseline header text + 2 * \baselineskip whitespace + \ht\strutbox main text 4) If you look at the area on page 30 called text, I'd like the text area to 41 lines. height = 41 \baselineskip 5) I'd like any whitespace needed to compensate for underfull \vbox messages to be divided equally between the whitespace separating the header and the text and the footer and the text. 5) I'd like backspace and topspace margins to be equal to the width divided by seven.

Thanks to Patrick and Hans I've a layout approaching what I want. My layout look slightly different to the one I'm posting. However this layout demonstrates my question, and uses a more available font. If you look at the output, you'll see, at the bottom of the main text area, whitespace. The whitespace exists because there isn't enough room to fit another line in the text area. My question is, can I specify an integer number of lines in the text area, and have the excess whitespace distributed evenly in my \headerdistance and \footerdistance. If this isn't possible without calculations, is it possible to log the underfull \vbox messages? So I've some feedback that I can use to adjust my \headerdistance and \footerdistance manually. %-- tryISOLayout.ctx -------------------------------------------- %output=pdf \setuppapersize[A4][A4] \setupencoding[default=texnansi] \setupbodyfont[cmr,14.4pt] \def\GoldenRatio{1.61803} \setbox0\hbox{\dorecurse{26}{\character\recurselevel}} \setuplayout[width=2.5\wd0, header=\lineheight, headerdistance=\lineheight, footer=\lineheight, footerdistance=\lineheight, height=\GoldenRatio\makeupwidth, backspace=\dimexpr(\makeupwidth/7), topspace=\dimexpr(\makeupwidth/7)] \showframe \starttext \startlinenumbering \dorecurse{5}{\input tufte} \stoplinenumbering \stoptext %-- end tryISOLayout.ctx -----------------------------------------

At 12:49 PM 2/6/2003 +0100, you wrote:

Guy Worthington writes:

Hello again,

...

If you look at the output, you'll see, at the bottom of the main text area, whitespace. The whitespace exists because there isn't enough room to fit another line in the text area. My question is, can I specify an integer number of lines in the text area, and have the excess whitespace distributed evenly in my \headerdistance and \footerdistance.

%output=pdf

\setuppapersize[A4][A4] \setupencoding[default=texnansi] \setupbodyfont[cmr,14.4pt]

\def\GoldenRatio{1.61803} \setbox0\hbox{\dorecurse{26}{\character\recurselevel}}

\setuplayout[width=2.5\wd0, header=\lineheight, footer=\lineheight, height=\GoldenRatio\makeupwidth, footerdistance=\dimexpr( (\makeupheight-37\lineheight-\headerheight-\footerheight) /2), % does not work, why?

there is some order in calculations; the header is calculated before the footer -) Hans ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE | pragma@wxs.nl Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: +31 (0)38 477 53 69 | fax: +31 (0)38 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------- information: http://www.pragma-ade.com/roadmap.pdf documentation: http://www.pragma-ade.com/showcase.pdf -------------------------------------------------------------------------

Guy Worthington writes: Hello Guy,

I think is due to TeX trying very hard not to generate a widow line.

Even after fiddling around with \looseness, I couldn't force TeX to add the 37th line. I've a feeling that if you come across a pathological case like the above, you really have to follow Knuth's advice and rewrite the paragraph.

I was playing with \widowpenalty but it did not help. But setting \brokenpenalty=0 works fine (although it is not nice to have a hyphen as the last line) Patrick