Hello I'm rather hors de combat with ConText at the moment but hope to get back to it properly (so far I have only engaged with it improperly...). Would plain TeX's \leftskip and \rightskip commands not work for you in the chapter titles and introductory matter? If your margins are, say, 36 points wide, then surround the affected text with:
\begingroup \leftskip -36pt \rightskip \leftskip Chapter Title\vskip 15pt% or whatever drop you want Chapter Introduction\par \endgroup (But I'm aware that some plain TeX commands and primitives just don't work in ConText - something I'll have to get used to if/when I return to the fray.) Best John *🇪🇺 * Слава Україні! * 🇺🇦* On Tue, 27 Jan 2026 at 02:45, Jeff Smith <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi everyone! > > I would like to do something a bit funky involving a double sided page > layout and an outer margin. > > My example below is a combination of my two recent questions. I have a > two-column setup with an outer margin used for callouts on a double-sided > layout. So on an odd page, that margin is on the right. On an even page, it > is on the other side. > > What I would like to do is that for each chapter, there's an introduction > text at the beginning, in a single column, that fills the whole width of > the text area _including_ the margin space, which is relevant only for the > two-column sections. Additionally, I want the chapter header to be centered > on that width too, instead of the "regular" text width. > > Essentially, I want to ignore the margin space for the beginning of each > chapter. > > I've tried using frames to do that, and toy around with offsets, but I > can't make it work for chapters that begin on even pages. What could be the > solution? > > Thank you! > > -- > \showframe > \setuppapersize[letter][letter] > > \setuplayout[topspace=0.5cm, bottomspace=0.5cm, cutspace=4cm, > backspace=1cm, rightmargin=3cm, leftmargin=0cm, header=1cm, footer=0.5cm, > height=middle, width=middle, margindistance=0.2cm, headerdistance=0.2cm, > footerdistance=0.2cm] > > \setuppagenumbering[alternative=doublesided,location={footer}] > > \setuphead[chapter][page=no, align=center] > > \definemixedcolumns[sectioncolumns][n=2, align=right, balance=no] > > \starttext > > % Chapter begins on the right > \startchapter > > \startsubject > \dorecurse{1}{\input knuth\par} > \stopsubject > > \startsubject > \startsectioncolumns > \dorecurse{3}{\input knuth\par} > \stopsectioncolumns > \stopsubject > \stopchapter > > % Chapter begins on the left > \startchapter > > \startsubject > \dorecurse{1}{\input knuth\par} > \stopsubject > > \startsubject > \startsectioncolumns > \dorecurse{3}{\input knuth\par} > \stopsectioncolumns > \stopsubject > > \stopchapter > > \stoptext > -- > > JFS > > ___________________________________________________________________________________ > If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to > the Wiki! > > maillist : [email protected] / > https://mailman.ntg.nl/mailman3/lists/ntg-context.ntg.nl > webpage : https://www.pragma-ade.nl / https://context.aanhet.net (mirror) > archive : https://github.com/contextgarden/context > wiki : https://wiki.contextgarden.net > > ___________________________________________________________________________________ >
___________________________________________________________________________________ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : [email protected] / https://mailman.ntg.nl/mailman3/lists/ntg-context.ntg.nl webpage : https://www.pragma-ade.nl / https://context.aanhet.net (mirror) archive : https://github.com/contextgarden/context wiki : https://wiki.contextgarden.net ___________________________________________________________________________________
