Class scrbook can't get \RedeclareSectionCommands[... to not skip after chapter

Question

helping my wife with her master's thesis. Her faculty wants no more skip after headings than between normal lines and headings can be bold but not larger than 12pt. I am using Redeclaresectioncommands.

\setkomafont{sectioning}{\normalfont\normalcolor\bfseries}
\setkomafont{pagehead}{\normalfont\bfseries}
\setkomafont{pagenumber}{\normalfont}
\setkomafont{chapter}{\normalfont\large\bfseries}
\setkomafont{section}{\normalfont\large\bfseries}
\setkomafont{subsection}{\normalfont\bfseries}

\RedeclareSectionCommands[ beforeskip=-.2\baselineskip,
afterskip=0em ]{chapter,section,subsection,subsubsection}
\RedeclareSectionCommands[ beforeskip=.2\baselineskip,
afterskip=-1em]{paragraph,subparagraph}

I have tried many different parameters, none of them seem to influence the skip after the chapter heading. Also, the heading font size looks a bit like it is slightly larger than the rest.

Is this achievable?

Answer 1

With afterskip=0pt or a negative value of afterskip there will be no line break after a section like heading. There will be a horizontal skip instead the vertical skip. So you have to use at least afterskip=1sp for section, subsection and subsubsection.

The sectioning commands use \par that have a glue. Because twosided KOMA-Script documents use \flushbottom the vertical space around section headings can be stretched a bit. The same happens between normal paragraphs. Note that \flushbottom ensures that the last line is always at the lower edge of the text body. But you can change this behaviour if you use \raggedbottom.

\documentclass{scrbook}
\addtokomafont{disposition}{\rmfamily}

\RedeclareSectionCommands[
  beforeskip=-.2\baselineskip,
  afterskip=1sp minus 1sp,
  font={}
]{chapter,section,subsection,subsubsection}

\RedeclareSectionCommands[
  font=\large
]{chapter,section}

\RedeclareSectionCommands[
  beforeskip=.2\baselineskip,
  afterskip=-1em
]{paragraph,subparagraph}

\raggedbottom

\setkomafont{pagehead}{\normalfont\bfseries}

\usepackage{blindtext}% dummy text
\begin{document}
\chapter{A chapter}
\blindtext
\section{A section}
\blindtext
\subsection{A subsection}
\blindtext

\vspace*{.2\baselineskip}
\noindent\textbf{Test of normal bold text with same vertical space}

\noindent\blindtext
\blinddocument
\end{document}

If the chapter and section headings should have the same size as normal text, remove \RedeclareSectionCommands[font=\large]{chapter,section} from the example.