HowTo_Manual

How to find the manual for KOMA-Script classes and packages

For users of outdated KOMA Script versions it should be noted that up to version 3.36 the file name of the German KOMA-Script manual was scrguide.pdf and the file name of the English KOMA-Script manual was scrguien.pdf. In subsequent explanations, corresponding replacements are to be made if necessary.

For the main components of KOMA-Script there is a free KOMA-Script manual and a KOMA-Script book published by Lehmanns Media. Already in the free KOMA-Script manual the function of the KOMA-Script classes and all official KOMA-Script user packages is explained. This free manual is available as scrguide-de.pdf in German and as scrguide-en.pdf in English and is an integral part of every legal KOMA-Script distribution. Both versions are intended for screen use and take this into account regarding page format and margin settings. Pagination is not optimized. The KOMA-Script book is available through bookstores and for members through DANTE e. V..In contrast to the free manual, the book has so far only been published in German. It contains some content extensions compared to the manual and is of course optimized in pagination.

In general, the TeX distributions MiKTeX and TeX Live (and therefore also MacTeX) come with a tool called texdoc. This tool is intended to display the instructions for the installed classes and packages. With MiKTeX, this is actually the tool mthelp, which is also available under the name texdoc for standardisation.

The tool texdoc expects at least one parameter indicating which document you are looking for. The easiest way is to enter the package name.

To start the tool under Windows, simply press the key combination [WINDOWS]+[R]. A dialogue opens in which you now enter the programme name followed by the parameter and confirm with the Enter key or the [OK] button.

To start the tool under KDE or Gnome simply press the key combination [ALT]+[F2]. A dialogue opens in which you now enter the programme name followed by the parameter and confirm with the [RETURN] or [ENTER] key.

How to start a console tool on other Linux desktops or Mac OSX can be found in the documentation for the respective system or desktop.

In some cases texdoc will find neither a DVI file nor a PDF file, but only a simple text file as manual. If you start texdoc as described above, unfortunately nothing will be displayed in most cases, because a terminal is usually necessary for the text display. In this case, a terminal should be opened (in KDE for example konsole. in Gnome gnome-terminal). You can then directly enter the call for texdoc. By the way, the terminal can be started in the same way as texdoc. Most graphical desktops also offer menus or key combinations for this purpose.

For the instructions for scrlayer-fancyhdr, for example,

texdoc scrlayer-fancyhdr

would be entered. The instructions for texdoc itself, in which further possibilities of the tool are mentioned, are available at least with TeX Live via

texdoc texdoc

at least in TeX Live. The manual for mthelp can be found in the MiKTeX documentation.

By the way, the English KOMA-Script manual can be obtained by searching for the manual of any KOMA-Script class, for example, via an HTML page. With

texdoc scrguide-en

you get it directly.

Please also refer to the documentation of the TeX distribution you are using. Links to the distributions and their instructions can be found above. Some of these can also be reached via texdoc itself.

The KOMA-Script manual of the official current KOMA-Script release can of course also be found on CTAN. The same applies to other LaTeX packages.