TextBackground

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TODO: Add more examples of usage of textbackgrounds. (See: To-Do List)

Pages, paragraphs, words can have a background: color or screen.

(See, eventually, the details manual for further explanations.)

What if textbackground doesn't work?

The textbackground commands require write18 to be enabled; see that page for more information.

Example: multi-page backgrounded text

Perhaps one might like to offset examples from the running text, or signal to the reader that the following paragraphs contain secondary, detailed information that is of interest only to the specialists. This can be achieved using textbackground.

In contrast, Framed creates text blocks that do not span columns or pages.

In the following example, we also reduce the textwidth and bodyfont size.

\setupcolors[state=start]

\definetextbackground[secondary][
        location=paragraph,
        background=color,backgroundcolor=middlegray,
        leftoffset=.5\bodyfontsize,rightoffset=.5\bodyfontsize,
        topoffset=.5\bodyfontsize,bottomoffset=.5\bodyfontsize,
        before={\startnarrower\switchtobodyfont[small]},
        after={\stopnarrower},
        frame=off]

\starttext

\input knuth

\startsecondary
	\input knuth
\stopsecondary

\input knuth

\stoptext

TODO: The background does not show here using the live, online conTeXt processor. Why? (See: To-Do List)

backgroundoffset

The options left, right, top, bottomoffset can be replaced by backgroundoffset yielding a different result:

\runMPgraphicsfalse %Needed because the wiki runs MkII and write18 is not enabled

\setupcolors[state=start]

\definetextbackground[secondary][
        location=paragraph,
        background=color,backgroundcolor=middlegray,
        backgroundoffset=.5\bodyfontsize,
        before={\startnarrower\switchtobodyfont[small]},
        after={\stopnarrower},
        frame=off]

\starttext

\input knuth

\startsecondary
	\input knuth
\stopsecondary

\input knuth

\stoptext

Example: dashed underbar (by WS, 4/2011)

\runMPgraphicsfalse % This is needed because the wiki runs MkII and write18 is not enabled.
\setuppapersize[B5]
\setupbodyfont[10pt]

\definetextbackground
  [dashed]
  [   location=text,
    framecolor=black,
   alternative=1,
       voffset=-\strutdp,
    background=,
         frame=off,
          dash=1]

\starttext
  \startdashed\input ward \stopdashed
\stoptext