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ConTeXt is a general-purpose document processor. Like LaTeX, it is derived from TeX. It is especially suited for structured documents, automated document production, very fine typography, and multilingual typesetting. It is based in part on the TeX typesetting system, and uses a document markup language for manuscript preparation. The typographical and automated capabilities of ConTeXt are extensive, including interfaces for handling microtypography, multiple footnotes and footnote classes, and manipulating OpenType fonts and features. Moreover, it offers extensive support for colors, backgrounds, hyperlinks, presentations, figure-text integration, and conditional compilation. It gives the user extensive control over formatting while making it easy to create new layouts and styles without learning the low-level TeX macro language.
While comparisons can be made between ConTeXt and LaTeX, the primary objectives of the two systems are distinct. From the onset, ConTeXt has been a typography and typesetting system designed to give users straightforward and consistent access to advanced typographical control, which is crucial for general-purpose typesetting. LaTeX's original vision, on the other hand, was to insulate the user from typographical decisions—an approach particularly useful for tasks such as submitting articles to a scientific journal. Although LaTeX has evolved from this original vision, ConTeXt's unified design prevents the package clashes often experienced with LaTeX.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="whatiscontextwiki">"What is ConTeXt" page at contextgarden</ref>
ConTeXt provides a multilingual user interface with support for markup in English, Dutch, German, French, and Italian and support for output in many scripts including western European, eastern European, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. It also allows the user to use different TeX engines like LuaTeX (MkIV) and LuaMetaTeX (LMTX). Older versions (MkII) worked with pdfTeX or XeTeX.<ref name="whatiscontextwiki"/>
As its native drawing engine, ConTeXt integrates a superset of MetaPost called MetaFun,<ref name="whatiscontextwiki"/> which allows users to draw page backgrounds and ornaments with MetaPost. MetaFun can also be used directly with MetaPost. ConTeXt also supports the use of other external drawing engines, like PGF/TikZ<ref>PGF/TikZ official manual. Version 2.0 Template:Webarchive. Section 9.1.3 "Using the ConTeXt Format". p. 88</ref> and PSTricks.<ref name="list-modules">List of ConTeXt modules at contextgarden</ref>
ConTeXt also provides a macro package for typesetting chemical structure diagrams with TeX called PPCHTeX,<ref>PPCHTeX Module for ConTeXt reference page at contextgarden</ref> as well as many other modules.<ref name="list-modules"/><ref>List of ConTeXt modules (static page)</ref><ref>List of ConTeXt modules in web server for downloading</ref> This package can also be used with plain TeX and LaTeX.
Originally entitled pragmatex, ConTeXt was given its name around 1996<ref>Hans Hagen Interview, 2006</ref> by Hans Hagen from PRAGMA Advanced Document Engineering (Pragma ADE), a Netherlands-based company.
LicenseEdit
ConTeXt is free software: the program code (i.e. anything not under the /doc subtree) is distributed under the GNU GPL; the documentation is provided under Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike license.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation
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The ConTeXt official manual(2001) and ConTeXt official mini tutorial (1999) are documents copyrighted by Pragma, but there is a repository of the future new manual<ref>Repository of new reference manual Template:Webarchive</ref> released under the GNU Free Documentation License.<ref>License notice of new official manual Template:Webarchive</ref><ref>Part of thread about context manual where Taco Hoekwater recognises that new manual is licensed under the GFDL and he should put license note on the current directory of manual</ref> As of April 2009 there is an up-to-date version of the fonts and typography chapters.<ref>Up-to-date chapters of manual: Fonts and Typography. April 2009.</ref>
VersionsEdit
The current version of ConTeXt is LMTX, introduced in April 2019 as the successor to Mark IV (MkIV).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Previous versions — Mark II (MkII) and Mark I — are no longer maintained.
According to the developers, the principal difference between LMTX and its predecessors is that the newest version "uses a compilation and scripting engine that is specifically developed with ConTeXt in mind: LuaMetaTeX ... [which] has been optimised heavily for ConTeXt use." Previously, MkIV used LuaTeX and MkII used pdfTeX.
HistoryEdit
ConTeXt was created by Hans Hagen<ref name="walden-hans">Dave Walden interview Hans Hagen. TeX User Group 2006.</ref> and Ton Otten of Pragma ADE in the Netherlands<ref>"Ask Nelly ..." PracTeX Journal. TeX User Group. 2005. Includes an example of ConTeXt document with source code.</ref> around 1991<ref name="taco-history">Taco Hoekwater "A short History of $2^4$ parts". ConTeXt User Meeting 2007 (march 24)</ref><ref name="CUM-programme-2007">Programme of the ConTeXt User Meeting 2007</ref> due to the need for educational typesetting material.
Around 1996, Hans Hagen coined the name ConTeXt meaning "text with tex" (con-tex-t; "con" is a Latin preposition meaning "together with").<ref name="walden-hans"/> Before 1996 ConTeXt was used only within Pragma ADE, but in 1996 it began to be adopted by a wider audience. The first users outside Pragma were Taco Hoekwater, Berend de Boer and Gilbert van den Dobbelsteen, and the first user outside the Netherlands was Tobias Burnus.<ref name="walden-hans"/>
In July 2004, contextgarden.net wiki page was created.<ref name="taco-history"/><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
ConTeXt low-level code was originally written in Dutch. Around 2005, the ConTeXt developers began translating this to English, resulting in the version known as MKII, which is now stable and frozenTemplate:Citation needed.
In August 2007, Hans Hagen presented the MKIV version,<ref name="CUM-programme-2007"/><ref>Hans Hagen The Road to MKIV. ConTeXt User Meeting 2007.</ref> and the first public beta was released later that year.<ref>MKIV at contextgarden</ref>
During the ConTeXt User Meeting 2008, Mojca Miklavec presented<ref>ConTeXt User Meeting 2008 web page</ref> ConTeXt Minimals, a distribution of ConTeXt containing the latest binaries and intended to have a small memory footprint, thus demanding less bandwidth for updates.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In August 2008, this distribution was registered as a project in launchpad web site.<ref>ConTeXt at Launchpad.net</ref>
In June 2008, Patrick Gundlach wrote the first post<ref>First ConTeXt blog post</ref> in ConTeXt blog.
In July 2009, ConTeXt started git repository.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
In November 2010, the ConTeXt Group was created.<ref>Official announcement of ConTeXt Group registration</ref>
In April 2019, LMTX (ConTeXt LuaMetaTeX) was announced.<ref>Announcement of lmtx</ref>
Example of codeEdit
Making ConTeXt documents is simple: one makes a plain text file, and compiles it with the context script.<ref>"TeXEXEC explained" manual. Pragma ADE.</ref> The result of this process is a PDF file (ConTeXt also can generate a DVI file). An example is shown below.
ConTeXt documents come with the file extension .tex or an extension demarking the version required: .mkii, .mkiv, or .mkxl for regular TeX, .mkvi or .mklx for a dialect that supports named macro parameters in addition to TeX’s numeric ones.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation
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| <syntaxhighlight lang="latex">
% This line is a comment because % precedes it. % It specifies the format of head named 'title' % Specifically the style of the font: sans serif % + bold + big font. \setuphead[title][style={\ss\bfd}, before={\begingroup},
after={John Doe, the author\smallskip%
\currentdate\bigskip\endgroup}]
\starttext \title{\CONTEXT} \section{Text} \CONTEXT\ is a document preparation system for the \TEX\ typesetting program. It offers programmable desktop publishing features and extensive facilities for automating most aspects of typesetting and desktop publishing, including numbering and cross-referencing (for example to equation \in[eqn:famous-emc]), tables and figures, page layout, bibliographies, and much more. It was originally written around 1990 by Hans Hagen. It could be an alternative or complement to \LATEX. \section{Maths} With \CONTEXT\ we could write maths. Equations can be automatically numbered. \placeformula[eqn:famous-emc] \startformula E = mc^2 \stopformula with \placeformula[eqn:def-m] \startformula m = \frac{m_0}{\sqrt{1-\frac{v^2}{c^2}}}
\stopformula \stoptext </syntaxhighlight> |
See alsoEdit
ReferencesEdit
External linksEdit
Official pagesEdit
- Template:Citation (distributes ConTeXt).
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- Template:Citation, new ConTeXt documentation Template:Dead link.
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Manuals and tutorialsEdit
- Template:Citation (official).
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- Template:Citation and Template:Citation: introductory material of ConTeXt features.
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Comparison between ConTeXt and LaTeXEdit
- Template:Citation for migration from LaTeX to ConTeXt.
- Template:Citation. Note: this text is quite old, and the legal information it contains is not relevant today, since ConTeXt is under GPLv2.
- Template:Citation. Interview of Hans Hagen including an insight into what motivated the creation of ConTeXt.
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- Template:Citation.
- Template:Citation. Originally Template:Citation. Contains a comparison of ConTeXt math capabilities with various latex math features, overall math alignments (gather, split, etc.).