Replacing the standard classes
People are forever concocting classes that replace the standard ones:
the present author produced an ukart class that used the
sober package, and a few British-specific things (such as
appear in the babel package’s British-english
specialisation) in the 1980s, which is still occasionally used.
Similar public efforts were available well back in the days of
LaTeX 2.09: a notable example, whose pleasing designs seem not to have
changed much over all that time, is the ntgclass bundle.
Each of the standard classes is replaced by a selection of classes,
named in Dutch, sometimes with a single numeric digit attached. So we
have classes artikel2, rapport1, boek3 and
brief. These classes are moderately well documented in
English.
The KOMA-script bundle (classes named scr...) are a
strong current contender. They are actively supported and are subject
to sensitive development; they are comprehensive in their coverage of
significant typesetting issues; they produce good-looking output and
they are well documented in both English (scrguien in the
distribution) and German (scrguide in the distribution).
The other comparable class is memoir. This aims to replace
book and report classes directly, and (like
KOMA-script) is comprehensive in its coverage of small issues.
Memoir’s documentation (memman) is very highly
spoken of, and its lengthy introductory section is regularly
recommended as a tutorial on typesetting.
- KOMA-script bundle
- macros/latex/contrib/koma-script (or browse the directory); catalogue entry
- memoir.cls
- macros/latex/contrib/memoir (or browse the directory); catalogue entry
- NTGclass bundle
- macros/latex/contrib/ntgclass (or browse the directory); catalogue entry
- sober.sty
- macros/latex209/contrib/misc/sober.sty; catalogue entry
This question on the Web: http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=replstdcls