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Copy paste from in-en-04.pdf
This system was developed from 1990 by [[Hans Hagen]] from [http://www.pragma-ade.nl/ PRAGMA Advanced Document Engineering] (Pragma ADE), a Netherlands-based company.
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(From in-en-04.pdf)
ConTEXt is developed for those who are responsible for producing
such documents. ConTEXt is written in the typographical
programming languages TEX. For using ConTEXt, no TEX--
programming skills and no technical background are needed.
Some basic knowledge of typography and document design
will enable you to use the full power of ConTEXt.
ConTEXt is parameter driven and the user interface supports
several languages, like english, german and dutch. This
means that those less familiar with the english language can
choose the interface that suits them best. Of course ConTEXt
can typeset in many languages.
Originally ConTEXt was written as tool for writing complex,
constantly changing and extensive educational documents.
Although much functionality originates there, ConTEXt has
proven to be quite suitable to perform many other complex
typesetting tasks. Some features are:
* automatic placement of figures, formulas, tables and other kind of floating bodies
* automatic generation of lists of abbreviations, synonyms, and whatever needs to be sorted
* automatic numbering of footnotes
* adapting footers and headers to the current page content
* extensive formatting of itemizations in more levels
* consistent typesetting of legends to formulas
* maintaining several registers, if needed with extensive interactive support
* extensive cross referencing capabilities
* generating lists of used figures, tables, formulas and more
* forcing rigourous consistency in emphasizing parts of the text
* managing documents in a project environment
* automatic placement of marginal notes
* typesetting in more than one column
* identifying textual elements in such a way that they can be hidden, moved and reused when needed (questions, answers, definitions, etc.)
* using text in more that one document, if needed with a different layout
* automatic hyphenation of words as well as adapt to language specific typographic needs
* inclusion of illustrations in standardized formats from other applications
* using color
* easy change of layout, while guarding consistent typography
* providing multiple tables of contents and lists, at all levels, to provide optimal accessibility
* automatic numbering of definitions, lemmas and other structural components
* automatic numbering of figures, tables, and other floating bodies
* automatic makeup of tables and formulas
ConTEXt supports the PDF format and is able to directly produce
highly interactive PDF files, using PDFTEX. All cross references
are automatically converted to hyperlinks. Such documents
can be viewed and consulted with Acrobat. ConTEXt
can provide all kind of navigational aids, that can be activated
without programming. Electronic versions of documents
thereby become very useful in educational settings. The potentials
of PDF is available to the user: complex forms and
JavaScript’s are no problem for ConTEXt.
PRAGMA ADE has developed ConTEXt in--house mainly to suit
its own and customers wishes concerning developing educational
documents. Flexibility in layout, reuse of content, and
maintenance are keywords. For more information and examples
we refer to www.pragma-ade.nl.
{{todo|This should be expanded and somewhat rewritten. Once it is expanded and rewritten, it should probably be ported back to Wikipedia as well, since it's a fairly small article for them.}}
