All, Try: \documentclass[12pt]{article} \usepackage{amsmath} \begin{document} \begin{equation} \label{func} P_{r-j}= \begin{cases} 0, & \text{if $r-j$ is odd}\\ r!(-1)^{(r-j)/2}, & \text{if $r-j$ is even.} \end{cases} \end{equation} \end{document} Then try: \usemodule[amsl] \starttext \placeformula[func] \startformula P_{r-j}= \startcases 0, & \text{if $r-j$ is odd}\\ r!(-1)^{(r-j)/2}, & \text{if $r-j$ is even.} \stopcases \stopformula \stoptext You'll note that the spacing in the latter is not as good.