HowTo_MigrateFromStandardClass

How to approximate the printing to the standard classes

When people are advised to use one of the KOMA-Script classes instead of one of the standard classes, they often refuse to do so because they claim that everything changes when they switch. In fact, the standard classes have a different page mirror, i.e. a different distribution of text and margins, a different form of chapter headings and also different fonts preset in a few other places. So by no means everything changes, only the paragraph and page breaks, the headings, the header and footer and of course you have a whole lot of new possibilities. But also here KOMA-Script classes can show its power: the easy changeability of many things. That's why all these defaults in KOMA-Script can be adjusted very far in the direction of the standard classes.

Maximum approach

As of version 3.12, the KOMA-Script classes scrbook, scrreprt and scrartcl also provide a kind of general answer to this rejection: class option emulatestandardclasses. Currently, the option makes the following changes:

• Grotesk (aka sans serif) is no longer used.
• Heading font sizes are the same as the standard classes.
• Chapter level headings are again with prefix line (“Chapter No” in the respective language).
• The spacing before and after a chapter heading is the same as the standard classes, so it is larger.
• The scrlayer-scrpage package is loaded and the page style is adapted to the standard classes (incl. inelegant capitalization in the column title if used)
• The default paper size is no longer A4, but letter.
• The default base font size is 10pt.
• The text area is the same size as in the standard classes, but the margins are set according to KOMA-Script method with \areaset.

All these settings can be changed, of course. Deviations should be specified after the class option emulatestandardclasses. This new option cannot be set by \KOMAoption or \KOMAoptions, but only as a class option.

By the way, the page break will not necessarily be identical even with the new option, since quite a number of vertical distances are still not identical in KOMA-Script. However, the paragraph break of normal paragraphs should remain unchanged.

It is possible that other changes will be added in the future besides the ones mentioned above. This will then be at the expense of compatibility with earlier KOMA-Script versions, but with a gain in compatibility with the standard classes.

Fonts

Sometimes users do not even want a complete return to the representation of the standard classes. For the most frequently requested change, namely the abandonment of Grotesk, aka sans serif fonts, there is therefore another option: egregdoesnotlikesansseriftitles.

Headings

For the headings only, there is also option headings=standardclasses. This adjusts the font size increments of all heading levels to those of the standard classes. Also, no Grotesk, aka sans serif font, is used, but the bold variant of the basic font. Chapter headings of scrbook and scrreprt are also set with prefix line and always start on a right-hand page in double-page typesetting.