Hi Hans, || does not work with tables, and until now I thought that this was a limitation of tables. But upon reading core-tab, it appears that you make a lot of effort to make sure that || works correctly, but it does not. I think that this is due to a mistake in the definition of pushouterbarandquote. Currently it is defined as \gdef\pushouterbarandquote {\ifForgetTableBarAndQuote \let|\letterbar \let"\letterdoublequote \ifnum\catcode`\|=\@@active \let\outertablebar |\else\let\outertablebar \relax\fi \ifnum\catcode`\"=\@@active \let\outertablequote"\else\let\outertablequote\relax\fi \fi} Shouldn't it be the other way round? That is first save the current meaning of | and ", and then redefine it. So, \bgroup \catcode`\|=\@@active \catcode`\"=\@@active \gdef\pushouterbarandquote {\ifForgetTableBarAndQuote \ifnum\catcode`\|=\@@active \let\outertablebar |\else\let\outertablebar \relax\fi \ifnum\catcode`\"=\@@active \let\outertablequote"\else\let\outertablequote\relax\fi \let|\letterbar \let"\letterdoublequote \fi} \egroup This makes sure that || works correctly. The redefinition of " and | was added last November. http://foundry.supelec.fr/plugins/scmsvn/viewcvs.php/tex/context/base/core-tab.tex?root=contextrev&r1=168&r2=173 Aditya