Hi ConTeXt community. While looking for free (preferably open-source) tools which I could use for typesetting a planned internal newsletter-booklet for a non-profit organization (to be released in printed form in regular intervals - each issue with new content of course, but same/similar style), I came across ConTeXt.
I usually use Inkscape and various WYSIWYG word processing software for designing and layouting flyers/leaflets/etc., but in this case (many pages, varying and regularly updated content, consistent style) I'm afraid those tools simply don't cut in in terms of professional-quality typesetting capabilities and content//style separation. So programmatic typesetting might be the answer. I thought of LaTeX first, but I read from various sources that using ConTeXt might be easier for typesetting book-like things, especially if you want to design your own styles. Before I delve in deeper, though, I would like to ask you (the ConTeXt community) some questions: a) Is the ConTeXt project alive? The newest PDF documentation I could find seems to be from 2007; most of it is dated 2003 or older. b) Do you think that ConTeXt is an appropriate tool for the use case I described (be honest please ;-)), and easy enough to learn for someone with almost no TeX experience? The requirements are: - Support for elaborate, colorful, graphics-heavy design, which I would preferably create in Inkscape and then export as vector graphics (or port to ConTeXt's own graphics language) as necessary. - Ability to write a style *once* (with reasonable effort), and "outsource" it to an external file (or files), so that for each new release of the newsletter, only a simple content TeX file (or files) with minimal amount of markup is required (which e.g. even a non-tech-savvy writer/editor could edit) - Ability to easily include pictures in the content, and let the typesetting engine automatically position them (either in the main text area with text floating around them, or in special margin areas). c) Are there any full-featured examples of design-heavy booklets/magazines/etc created with ConTeXt., for which the full source code is publicly available? That would be *really* helpful in order to assess how much work would be required, and also to learn how exactly it's done in practice. Thanks! Sanja C. ___________________________________________________________________________________ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___________________________________________________________________________________
