Paragraph Enumeration

Standard Paragraph Numbering

ConTeXt has a built-in mechanism for paragraph numbering, which places numbers in the margin. This is accessed with \setupparagraphnumbering, as in this example, which also sets the number style to italic rather than the default roman.

\starttext
Some text in an unnumbered paragraph before the paragraph numbering starts.

\setupparagraphnumbering[state=start,style=italic,distance=0pt]
This is the first numbered paragraph; it's short.

This is another numbered paragraph. it's rather a bit longer.  Specifically,
it's long enough to wrap around onto more than one line, so as to show that
these are paragraph numbers and not line numbers.

A third numbered paragraph.
\setupparagraphnumbering[state=stop]

And, finally, an unnumbered paragraph after the paragraph numbering.
\stoptext

Paragraph Numbering in the Text

An alternate way of numbering paragraphs is to place the numbers in the running text, rather than in the margin. ConTeXt doesn't have a built-in way to do this, but it's not difficult to add a method using the \everypar macro. The following code was proposed by Taco on the mailing list.

\newcounter\Paracount
\setcounter\Paracount1
\def\Paragraphnumber%
   {\increment\Paracount 
    \Paracount.~}
\def\startParagraphNumbers%
   {\par \begingroup \appendtoks \Paragraphnumber \to \everypar}
\def\stopParagraphNumbers%
   {\par \endgroup}

\starttext
Some text in an unnumbered paragraph before the paragraph numbering starts.

\startParagraphNumbers
This is the first numbered paragraph; it's short.

This is another numbered paragraph. it's rather a bit longer.  Specifically,
it's long enough to wrap around onto more than one line, so as to show that
these are paragraph numbers and not line numbers.

A third numbered paragraph.
\stopParagraphNumbers

And, finally, an unnumbered paragraph after the paragraph numbering.
\stoptext

This produces the following result/