Remove spacing before \chapter in LaTeX

Question

I am using the book style to write a research report and would like to know how to remove the top vertical space before a chapter heading. I need this for the 'Abstract' page. I would like it to start nearer to the top than standard chapters.

Answer 1

An easy way is using the titlesec package. The appendix 9.2 of its documentation shows how the standard classes typeset their headings - it's not hard to copy and to modify those commands according to the own requirements.

Answer 2

Here is some sample code using the titlesec package, Stefan's suggestion. The titleformat command leaves everything at default values, but you need to include it (I think) for the titlespacing changes to work. The second titlespacing command sets back to default values, with assumption that you wanted altered spacing only for first chapter:

\documentclass{book}

\usepackage{titlesec}

\titleformat{\chapter}[display]
{\normalfont\huge\bfseries}{\chaptertitlename\ \thechapter}{20pt}{\Huge}

% this alters "before" spacing (the second length argument) to 0
\titlespacing*{\chapter}{0pt}{0pt}{40pt}

\begin{document}

\chapter{One}
 % this changes "before" spacing back to its default of 50pt
\titlespacing*{\chapter}{0pt}{50pt}{40pt}}
First sentence of chapter.

\chapter{two}
First sentence of chapter.

\chapter{three}
First sentence of chapter.

\end{document}