The crystallographic and magnetic texture of epitaxial, hard magnetic Sm2Co7films prepared on Crbuffered MgO singlecrystal substrates are analyzed. Substrate symmetry, deposition temperature, and deposition rate are systematically varied, resulting in a variety of different, but epitaxial orientations. On Crbuffered MgO001, Sm2Co7grows with three different types of orientations: one inplane orientation with the caxis aligned in the substrate plane parallel to MgO100 and 010, and two tilted orientations, where the caxes of the Sm2Co7crystals have a 45° and 60° orientation to the substrate plane. The volume fraction of the tilted orientations decreases with decrease in the Sm2Co7deposition temperature. A lower limit is given by the epitaxial growth temperature, which is necessary to form a fully crystalline, epitaxial film. This temperature can be reduced by lowering the deposition rate. Thus, almost completely inplane aligned films can be achieved by a lowratelowtemperature deposition. On a Crbuffered MgO011 substrate Sm2Co7grows with a single orientation, i.e., with the caxis aligned onto the substrate plane parallel to MgO100. The findings are discussed considering elastic strain minimization, thermodynamics and kinetics of film growth, surface faceting, and Coparticle formation.