Automatically add vertical space /only/ between two sequential paragraphs

Question

I am using KOMA-script scrreprt class.

I know I can use \usepackage{parskip} or \setlength{\parskip}{12pt}, but both of these also affect headings.

Adding \vspace{12pt} manually between all two sequential paragraphs seems to work, but that's anything but convenient. Is there a way to automate it?

Answer 1

If you use a KOMA-Script class, the solution is already provided by the class itself:

\documentclass[parskip=full]{scrreprt}

(page 49 in the English documentation).

You can also add

\usepackage{etoolbox}
\appto\chapterheadendvskip{\vspace{-1\parskip}}

if you don't want a \parskip added immediately after a chapter title.

For section titles use titlesec. For customizing the amount of the \parskip, use something like

\setparsizes{\parindent}{50pt plus 20pt minus 30pt}{\parfillskip}

in your preamble (adjusting the ridiculous values I put just as an example). It's important to provide stretching and shrinking components to help text fit in the page.

Answer 2

I expect the best way would be to use parskip (KOMA has its own way of affecting paragraph skips I think) and then changing the heading spacing to compensate. Here's an example to show how you might do it with the titlesec package.

\documentclass{scrartcl}
\usepackage{parskip,lipsum,titlesec}
\setlength{\parskip}{50pt}
\titlespacing*{\section}{0pt}{-40pt}{-40pt}
\begin{document}
\section{First}
\lipsum[1-5]
\section{Second}
\lipsum[6-10]
\end{document}

(I've exaggerated the parskip so it's easier to see what's going on.) You may want to add stretch glues to the beforeskip and afterskip arguments of \titlespacing.