Watch out. There is a pitfall here (yes, I have fallen in this trap). Try \type{\doifempty{\empty}{yes}} = <\doifempty{\empty}{yes}>\crlf and you will see that it is NOT empty despite the suggestive use of the \empty macro! Hans van der Meer On 14 Jan 2016, at 08:41, Marco Patzer mailto:lists@homerow.info> wrote: On Wed, 13 Jan 2016 23:18:03 +0100 Pablo Rodriguez mailto:oinos@gmx.es> wrote: which is the difference between \doiftext and \doifempty? First of all, the logic is reversed, \doiftext prints the second argument if the first one contains text, \doifempty does print the second argument if the first one *does not* contain anything. You can get around this by using the \…else versions. Then, the major difference is that \doifempty checks if the argument is empty and nothing else. \doiftext checks if it contains a box of non-zero width. \starttext text: \doiftextelse{foo}{is text}{no text}\par text: \doifemptyelse{foo}{is empty}{not empty}\par empty: \doiftextelse{}{is text}{no text}\par empty: \doifemptyelse{}{is empty}{not empty}\par space: \doiftextelse{\space}{is text}{no text}\par space: \doifemptyelse{\space}{is empty}{not empty}\par zero width: \doiftextelse{\framed[width=0cm]{frame}}{is text}{no text}\par zero width: \doifemptyelse{\framed[width=0cm]{frame}}{is empty}{not empty}\par image: \doiftextelse{\externalfigure[cow]}{is text}{no text}\par image: \doifemptyelse{\externalfigure[cow]}{is empty}{not empty}\par \stoptext Marco ________________________________________________________________________________