Wolfgang, Yes I can see others have found the same problem. But thanks anyway for the link, because it prompted me to experiment with a box. At least for \startsimplecolumns .. \stopsimplecolumns there seems to be hope. See the example below, the last framedtext has two columns inside. For \startcolumns .. \stopcolumns this is not a solution: an error message about \prevdepth appears. \starttext % bare columns \leftaligned{\em simplecolumns:}\blank \startsimplecolumns[n=2] COLUMN 1\crlf COLUMN 1.1\crlf \column COLUMN 2\crlf \stopsimplecolumns \blank % this does not work \leftaligned{\em simplecolumns in framedtext:}\blank \startframedtext \startcolumns[n=2] COLUMN 1\crlf COLUMN 1.1\crlf \column COLUMN 2\crlf \stopcolumns \stopframedtext \blank % this works more or less \leftaligned{\em simplecolumns boxed in framedtext:}\blank \startframedtext \hbox\bgroup \startsimplecolumns[n=2] COLUMN 1\crlf COLUMN 1.1\crlf \column COLUMN 2\crlf \stopsimplecolumns \egroup \stopframedtext \blank \stoptext Hans van der Meer On 20 mei 2008, at 08:16, Wolfgang Schuster wrote:

On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 7:37 PM, Hans van der Meer

...

wrote: When I enclose columns in a frame then the columns are not formed. See the minimal example: \starttext \startframedtext \startcolumns[n=2] COLUMN 1 \column COLUMN 2 \stopcolumns \stopframedtext \stoptext

Commenting out the \startframedtext,\stopframedtext typesets two columns; \startsimplecolumns shows the same ill behaviour. ConTeXt ver: 2008.05.13 14:42 MKII fmt: 2008.5.19 int: english/ english

Is there a cure?

http://www.ntg.nl/pipermail/ntg-context/2007/025622.html

or

\starttextbackground/\stoptextbackground

...

Hans van der Meer

Wolfgang ________________________________________________________________________________

On Tue, 20 May 2008, Wolfgang Schuster wrote:

Hi Hans,

...

Yes I can see others have found the same problem. But thanks anyway for the link, because it prompted me to experiment with a box. At least for \startsimplecolumns .. \stopsimplecolumns there seems to be hope. See the example below, the last framedtext has two columns inside. For \startcolumns .. \stopcolumns this is not a solution: an error message about \prevdepth appears.

Normal columns need the output routine and won't work inside of a box, streams are a way to invoke the output routine.

Simplecolumns are simpler and don't need the output routine, it's just a simple vsplit and work in a few cases but is more limited, this is why it did work, the internal function is like this.

\starttext \setbox0=\vbox{\hsize.45\hsize\input knuth\par} \setbox1=\vsplit0 to .5\ht0 \hbox to\hsize{\box1\hfill\box0} \stoptext

Thanks for this explanation. This makes it much easier to understand when to use columns and when to use simplecolumns. Aditya