Features

KOMA-Script is not a single class but a collection of document classes and packages. This page gives an overview from a user's point of view. The complete list of everything in the bundle is at The KOMA-Script Collection.

Document Classes

Depending on which third-party packages you use, you can simply replace the standard class with the corresponding KOMA-Script class.

Wrapper classes

Because the abbreviated names are hard to remember, there are also classes with a spelled-out name:

• scrarticle is a wrapper for scrartcl
• scrreport is a wrapper for scrreprt
• scrletter is a wrapper combining scrartcl with the scrletter package. It is not fully compatible with scrlttr2, but it brings some improvements.

Packages

Many packages in the collection can be used without the KOMA-Script classes.

Type area and page styles

• typearea calculates margins and the text area based on typographical aspects
• scrlayer provides layers and combines them into page styles
• scrlayer-scrpage builds on that and offers easily configurable page styles for headers and footers. An alternative to fancyhdr that also works with many other classes
• scrlayer-notecolumn is a proof of concept for layers with scrlayer and a candidate for being split off from KOMA-Script

Structure and directories

• tocbasic manages auxiliary file extensions such as .lof or .lot, handles writing to and reading from those files, and provides extra floating environments, their non-floating counterparts, and caption configuration
• scrbase contains basic functions used by several classes and packages of the collection. Useful for your own packages as well
• scrextend provides some of the KOMA-Script class features to users of other classes, namely the standard classes
• scrfontsizes generates font size files for use with KOMA-Script classes or scrextend
• scrlfile loads file hooks. It can nowadays be replaced by the generic LaTeX hooks
• scrlogo merely defines the \KOMAScript command

Letters

• scrletter provides the main features of scrlttr2 as a package that can be combined with other classes, for example scrartcl, scrreprt, scrbook or the standard classes article, report and book
• scraddr reads .adr files and gives access to the individual fields of the entries

Contracts

• scrjura is now only a wrapper that makes the split-off package contract compatible with the deprecated scrjura

Candidates for being split off

The following packages still ship with KOMA-Script, but the official overview explicitly marks them as candidates for being split off. They already exist as standalone packages as well:

• scrdate formats today's date in the language-independent ISO format and prints the language-dependent day name of any given date. See scrdate
• scrtime prints the current time of the LaTeX run. See scrtime

Internal only

The collection also contains classes and packages that are only used internally and that you should not load directly, because they may change incompatibly at any time: koma-script-source-doc, scrguide, scrkbase, and the scrlfile-hook variants.

Configurability

KOMA-Script is configured via \KOMAoption{}:

\KOMAoption{captions=tableheading}     % table caption on top
\KOMAoption{parskip=half}              % half-line paragraph skip
\KOMAoption{DIV=12}                    % tighter type area
\KOMAoption{headings=big}              % larger chapter headings

Multilingual letters

The scrlttr2 class ships with a number of locale variants, each with matching address formats, date layouts, and salutation conventions:

• DIN (Germany, A4 with window envelope)
• DINmtext (German medium text height for short letters)
• US (US Letter, US salutation)
• SN (Swiss norm)
• SNleft (Swiss norm, address block on the left)
• NF (French norm)
• JP (Japanese layout)

The manual

The official manual runs to more than 600 pages in German (scrguide) and English (scrguien). It covers all classes, packages and options and includes many examples.