<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">One other advantage is that Context works with xml quite smoothly, once you know how to set it up.<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Robert<br class=""><div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">Op 1 mei 2018, om 13:38 heeft Wilfred van Rooijen <<a href="mailto:wvanrooijen@yahoo.com" class="">wvanrooijen@yahoo.com</a>> het volgende geschreven:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div class=""><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" class=""><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1525174765796_4771" class="">Following Mojca's explanation, I feel I should switch to ConTeXt :-))</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1525174765796_4781" class=""><br class=""></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1525174765796_4782" class="">Wilfred</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1525174765796_4760" class=""><span class=""></span></div> <div class="qtdSeparateBR"><br class=""><br class=""></div><div class="yahoo_quoted" style="display: block;"> <div style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" class=""> <div style="font-family: HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" class=""> <div dir="ltr" class=""><font size="2" face="Arial" class=""> On Tuesday, May 1, 2018 3:43 PM, Mojca Miklavec <<a href="mailto:mojca.miklavec.lists@gmail.com" class="">mojca.miklavec.lists@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br class=""></font></div> <br class=""><br class=""> <div class="y_msg_container"><div dir="ltr" class="">On 26 April 2018 at 14:20, Carrs wrote:<br clear="none" class="">> Hi,<br clear="none" class="">><br clear="none" class="">> a newbie question. I would like advice on which TeX-based software it would<br clear="none" class="">> be best to learn in detail for my typesetting plans. So far, I have learned<br clear="none" class="">> a little TeX and a little LaTeX, but not enough of either to tell me which<br clear="none" class="">> will work best for me.<br clear="none" class=""><br clear="none" class="">You can also look into ConTeXt.<br clear="none" class=""><br clear="none" class="">It is based on TeX, so you get support for all the fancy math stuff<br clear="none" class="">and typographical quality.<br clear="none" class=""><br clear="none" class="">The basic syntax is not that much different from (La)TeX. Instead of<br clear="none" class="">\begin{itemize} ... \end{itemize} you use \startitemize ...<br clear="none" class="">\stopitemize for example, but syntax for math is mostly the same. The<br clear="none" class="">internals/programming is cleaner in my opinion (but much different in<br clear="none" class="">any case).<br clear="none" class=""><br clear="none" class="">It works well on all platforms you need (Linux, Mac, Windows, but also<br clear="none" class="">many others), like any other TeX flavour.<br clear="none" class=""><br clear="none" class="">It works with both Unicode engines (LuaTeX and XeTeX, even though<br clear="none" class="">ConTeXt's support for LuaTeX is much much more advanced nowadays). It<br clear="none" class="">supports more scripts than just Latin script and can also<br clear="none" class="">automatically compose characters for you even when some font of lower<br clear="none" class="">quality is lacking those characters.<br clear="none" class=""><br clear="none" class="">Its support for very different and very flexible styles is great and<br clear="none" class="">very well integrated into the package. Support for multiple columns is<br clear="none" class="">quite advanced and allows you to place pictures across multiple<br clear="none" class="">columns and across multiple pages if needed.<br clear="none" class=""><br clear="none" class="">It is of course completely free and opensources, no licences (that is<br clear="none" class="">also true for nearly all TeX anyway). There are TeX user groups around<br clear="none" class="">the globe (TUG in US, DANTE in Germary, as well as some others in<br clear="none" class="">Poland, UK, France, Italy, Denmark, ... ConTeXt group as well) where<br clear="none" class="">you can enrol as a member and support TeX development, but those are<br clear="none" class="">optional.<br clear="none" class=""><br clear="none" class="">Beginner manual is here:<br clear="none" class=""> <a shape="rect" href="http://distribution.contextgarden.net/current/context/current/doc/context/documents/general/manuals/ma-cb-en.pdf" target="_blank" class="">http://distribution.contextgarden.net/current/context/current/doc/context/documents/general/manuals/ma-cb-en.pdf</a><br clear="none" class="">along with a lot of other manuals. The only drawback is that there are<br clear="none" class="">so many different document spread around that it's sometimes tricky to<br clear="none" class="">figure out where to look unless you read them all.<br clear="none" class=""><br clear="none" class="">You can also get face-to-face help at the meeting:<br clear="none" class=""> <a shape="rect" href="http://meeting.contextgarden.net/" target="_blank" class="">http://meeting.contextgarden.net</a><br clear="none" class="">which is a great place to meet people, exchange ideas, learn about new<br clear="none" class="">development, get your questions answered.<br clear="none" class=""><br clear="none" class="">What I particularly like about ConTeXt is that:<br clear="none" class="">- it is very actively developed<br clear="none" class="">- it has a consistent user interface and no need to find a different<br clear="none" class="">package for every feature you need in your document<br clear="none" class="">- it has a very active mailing list and you can usually get your<br clear="none" class="">questions answered very quickly<br clear="none" class="">- new functionality is often added on user requests, sometimes within<br clear="none" class="">a few hours<br clear="none" class="">- it has a lot of amazing functionality with respect to new<br clear="none" class="">technologies (like fonts) that not even the expensive commercial<br clear="none" class="">products can offer<br clear="none" class="">- built-in clean programming language (lua)<br clear="none" class="">- ability to interface with external libraries (nearly built-in<br clear="none" class="">support for reading from databases)<br clear="none" class=""><br clear="none" class="">The only "drawback" of ConTeXt is that for historic reasons (ConTeXt<br clear="none" class="">is younger) LaTeX has more users, so if a complete newbie seeks help<br clear="none" class="">nearby (not online), it is slightly easier to find someone familiar<br clear="none" class="">with LaTeX. But as soon as you have some specific needs like advanced<br clear="none" class="">support for image placement and other trickery, the fact that your<br clear="none" class="">neighbour has written a paper with LaTeX some time ago will usually<br clear="none" class="">not help that much anyway.<br clear="none" class=""><br clear="none" class="">Mojca<div class="yqt8683062911" id="yqtfd20139"><br clear="none" class=""><br clear="none" class=""><br clear="none" class="">--------------------------------------------------<br clear="none" class="">Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.:<br clear="none" class=""> <a shape="rect" href="http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex" target="_blank" class="">http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex</a><br clear="none" class=""></div></div><br class=""><br class=""></div> </div> </div> </div></div></div><br class=""><br class="">--------------------------------------------------<br class="">Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.:<br class=""> <a href="http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex" class="">http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex</a><br class=""></div></blockquote></div><br class=""></div></body></html>