Paul Tremblay wrote:

On Fri, Feb 25, 2005 at 10:56:55AM +0100, Hans Hagen wrote:

...

There are several methods, like:

\setuplayout[left] [....] \setuplayout[right][....]

This doesn't work for me. ConTeXt simply ignores the command.

Same here - ConTeXt just reverted to default margins (I assume) instead of doing what it'd been told with the above commands... I checked with \showsetups, it really totally ignored whatever I told it to have as backspace. However, Paul, if you "just" want mirror margins, i.e. "outside" and "inside" margins, it can be done with the correct set of commands - by trial and error I've gotten this to work: \setuplayout [location=middle, %"doublesided" NOT good here, don't try! footer=1cm, %just a preference... backspace=5.5cm, %inside margin from edge of page width=12cm, %textwidth, give lots of empty space leftmargindistance=5pt, %space between inner margin and text rightmargindistance=5pt] %space between outer margin and text (Note. This layout gives a wide *inner* margin, i.e. wide margin at the spine/middle of a book, because the finished product is put into a ringbinder, which 'eats' up quite much of the inside margin. Might look funny to you with the fairly narrow text and wide inner margin, but works nicely when in the binder.) THIS is what turns the above (originally set up for a single right-hand space, that's why 'left' is inside and 'right' is outside) into mirror margins: \setuppagenumbering [alternative=doublesided, location={header,margin}] %number in header at outer margin [Actually, when I compile my manual with the above settings and print for example pages 7 and 8 as duplex and hold the page against light, there's an ever-so-little discrepancy by 1-1,5 mm on the margins on different sides, but this might be our printer rather than the settings. Doesn't bother me, the readers of the manual will never notice nor care.] My chapters always start on an odd page on the right, i.e. as the traditional book layout dictates, and this seemed to be a default setting. Thus I didn't have to do anything about that, the pagenumbering setting fixed all of it. If you have an A4 page, 210 mm wide, this should suffice for you to give your mirror margins - remember that the first page that comes out will be an odd page, i.e. a right-hand page! ---- \setuplayout [backspace=.5in, %1/2 inch inside margin width=17.2cm] %textwidth, leaves 1" for outer margin \setuppagenumbering [alternative,doublesided] ---- If you are on letter paper, it is of course easy to resort to inches altogether, the total width of a letter paper is 8.5 inches, so your backspace (inner margin) is 0.5in and if you want 1 inch outer margin, 8.5-1.5 gives "width=7in". [The example above might be off by a millimeter or two, although I can't tell if it is my math, my ConTeXt or my LaserJet that causes this...] A mistake I as a Windows user made in the beginning was trying to set BOTH margins. When I realized that what I really need to do is to set one (=left) margin and textwidth and whatever was left would make up the second (=right) margin, my layouts started to work a lot better! BTW, I found the graphic on p. 23 of the "big manual" (ConTeXt-en on paper) to be very instructive and helpful. Once I had digested what it really meant (and how it differed from for example Word and PageMaker), I started to understand the layout commands a lot better and finally got my manuals to look like I wanted them to look. Hope this helps, Mari just a Windows dummy from the cold North