First Document

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TODO: mention MKII and IV and both texexec and context already at this step (See: To-Do List)

This page describes the fundamentals of using ConTeXt. It includes hands-on examples, and the instructions assume that you have ConTeXt installed. If you don't want to install it yet, you can try it on the web.

Start by typing the following into a text editor and saving it as hello.tex:

\starttext
Hello World
\stoptext

Then go to the command-line and type:

texexec hello.tex

ConTeXt will then process your document. It will output some information, such as follows—this output does not indicate an error:

TeXExec | processing document 'hello.tex'
TeXExec | no ctx file found
TeXExec | tex processing method: context
TeXExec | TeX run 1
TeXExec | writing option file hello.top
TeXExec | tex engine: pdfetex
TeXExec | tex format: cont-en
TeXExec | progname: context
This is pdfeTeXk, Version 3.141592-1.30.3-2.2 (Web2c 7.5.5)
 \write18 enabled.
 %&-line parsing enabled.
 (c:\context\usr\local\context\tex\texmf-local/web2c/natural.tcx)
entering extended mode
(./hello.tex

ConTeXt  ver: 2006.05.14 23:57  fmt: 2006.5.16  int: english  mes: english

language        : language en is active
<protectionstate 0>
...

Once texexec has finished, it will leave behind a file called hello.pdf. Open it and you will see a "Hello world" document.

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