What is ConTeXt? What can I do with it? Let’s see. Take your favourite text editor and type in the following document. Save it as file hello.tex.
\starttext Hello World \stoptext
Now go to the shell/command line and type in
texexec --pdf hello.tex and now ConTeXt will start. It will give you some output on your terminal TeXExec 4.3 - ConTeXt / PRAGMA ADE 1997-2004 executable : pdfetex format : cont-en inputfile : test output : standard interface : en options : once nonstop current mode : none This is pdfeTeXk, Version 3.141592-1.11a-2.1 (Web2C 7.5.2) \write18 enabled. %&-line parsing enabled. (/opt/texlive/8/texmf/web2c/cp8bit.tcx) entering extended mode (./test.tex{pdftex.cfg} ConTeXt ver: 2004.4.9 fmt: 2004.4.16 int: english mes: english language : language en is active <protectionstate 0> ...
Don’t be worried. This is the way it should look. Once texexec has finished, it will leave behind a file called hello.pdf. Open it and you will see a Hello world on a virtual A4 paper and a page number.