Eliminate space before \begin{itemize}

Question

In Latex, how do I eliminate the space inserted before itemize?

\begin{itemize} % produces lots of vertical space
\item ...
\item ...
\end{itemize}

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it's better-suited on [tex.se]. — Werner, Mar 02 '18 at 17:03
https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/115907/how-do-i-remove-white-space-above-itemize-command-in-beamer-using-enumitem?noredirect=1&lq=1 — PatrickT, Apr 27 '18 at 07:33
There are correct answers to this question in https://tex.stackexchange.com/q/86054/157031. (Link shared by PatrickT is also on point) — Cyriac Antony, Jun 25 '19 at 05:46

Will Robertson · Answer 1 · 2020-01-13T09:18:58.513

127

The way to fix this sort of problem is to redefine the relevant list environment. The enumitem package is my favourite way to do this sort of thing; it has many options and parameters that can be varied, either for all lists or for each list individually.

Here's how to do (something like) what it is I think you want:

\usepackage{enumitem}
\setlist{nolistsep}

or

\usepackage{enumitem}
\setlist{nosep}

edited Jan 13 '20 at 09:18

answered Jul 02 '09 at 08:22

Will Robertson

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Perfect. Just as easy as the answer of [Stefano Borini], _but_ this solution works even if there are nested lists. Thank you. – devsnd May 16 '12 at 17:15
30

Even if I set the options to [topsep=0px,partopsep=0px] the vertical space before the list is still there - hence IMHO this answer does not work. – Robert Nov 01 '12 at 15:00
2

@Robert, why not use a negative number? This works for me: `\begin{enumerate}[topsep=-5px,partopsep=0px] ...` – zkurtz Mar 19 '15 at 20:43
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@Robert: According to the enumitem docs, the vertical space before and after a list is given by `\parsep + \topsep [+ \partopsep]`, so you either have to set `\topsep` or `\partopsep` to a negative number to compensate for any positive value of `\parsep`. – balu Jan 11 '20 at 17:02
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You can set list parameters globally: `\setlist[itemize]{topsep=-0.2cm}` (see Global settings in documentation of the enumitem package: https://www.ctan.org/pkg/enumitem). – scrutari Apr 24 '21 at 13:52

score 87 · Accepted Answer · edited Aug 18 '14 at 00:21

87

Try \vspace{-5mm} before the itemize.

edited Aug 18 '14 at 00:21

Martin Thoma

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answered Jun 29 '09 at 23:46

Stefano Borini

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\vspace is the road to ruin. You must not fight LaTeX, but rather embrace it. – Eric Jul 02 '09 at 08:25
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yes, but sometimes the fight is too much to handle. – Stefano Borini Jul 02 '09 at 12:50
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You mean the embrace is too much to handle, and the fight is easier :-) – Joachim Breitner Oct 12 '11 at 09:29
4

This should be **\vspace{-3.5mm}**. – Jason Jun 16 '13 at 07:32
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@Jason and all: the answer by Paolo below is simple too and much better: *\vspace{-\topsep}* – Joce Jul 22 '14 at 14:50
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vspace is a dirty and quick solution. it should only be used when everything else is ready and only fine-tuning is needed. Otherwise, even adding a paragraph can ruin the whole paragraph. – fanchyna Mar 16 '19 at 14:31
This works when using `list` also – mikey Apr 26 '20 at 20:25
Could it also remove the space after the list? – alper Jan 14 '22 at 18:03

score 64 · Answer 3 · edited Aug 18 '22 at 12:27

64

Use \vspace{-\topsep} before \begin{itemize}
Use \setlength{\parskip}{0pt} \setlength{\itemsep}{0pt plus 1pt} after \begin{itemize}
And for the space after the list, use \vspace{-\topsep} after \end{itemize}

\vspace{-\topsep}
\begin{itemize}
  \setlength{\parskip}{0pt}
  \setlength{\itemsep}{0pt plus 1pt}
  \item ...
  \item ...
\end{itemize}
\vspace{-\topsep}

edited Aug 18 '22 at 12:27

alper

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answered Nov 19 '13 at 19:05

PeaGon

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Nice! Unfortunately enumitem is incompatible with beamer, so I like package-independent methods. `topsep` was too aggressive for me, so I went with \vspace{-0.5\topsep}` – craq Jan 12 '15 at 10:24
Doing this for every `itemize` is painful... – Yan King Yin Apr 02 '21 at 11:05

score 23 · Answer 4 · edited Aug 05 '19 at 20:47

The cleanest way for you to accomplish this is to use the enumitem package (https://ctan.org/pkg/enumitem). For example,

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{enumitem}% http://ctan.org/pkg/enumitem
\begin{document}
\noindent Here is some text and I want to make sure
there is no spacing the different items. 
\begin{itemize}[noitemsep]
  \item Item 1
  \item Item 2
  \item Item 3
\end{itemize}
\noindent Here is some text and I want to make sure
there is no spacing between this line and the item
list below it.
\begin{itemize}[noitemsep,topsep=0pt]
  \item Item 1
  \item Item 2
  \item Item 3
\end{itemize}
\end{document}

Furthermore, if you want to use this setting globally across lists, you can use

\usepackage{enumitem}% http://ctan.org/pkg/enumitem
\setlist[itemize]{noitemsep, topsep=0pt}

However, note that this package does not work well with the beamer package which is used to make presentations in Latex.

As noted (and corrected) elsewhere, the recent versions of enumitem include a [nosep] option which is designed to remove space above and below the list as well as between the items...but it does not do this if you are also using the parskip package. Herbert Voß posted a solution to this on c.t.t. — \setlist{partopsep=-\parskip,parsep=0pt} — Peter Flynn, Oct 23 '16 at 21:51
When I add `leftmargin=*` it generated newline again, would it be possible to prevent it? — alper, Jan 14 '22 at 17:50

score 12 · Answer 5 · edited Jul 04 '19 at 10:45

12

The "proper" LaTeX ways to do it is to use a package which allows you to specify the spacing you want. There are several such package, and these two pages link to lists of them...

TeX FAQ entry How to adjust list spacing
http://dcwww.camd.dtu.dk/~schiotz/comp/LatexTips/LatexTips.html

edited Jul 04 '19 at 10:45

0xC0000022L

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answered Jun 29 '09 at 23:59

Stobor

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It is never a bad idea to point at CTAN ( http://www.ctan.org/ ). – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten Jun 30 '09 at 00:00
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It is, however, generally a bad idea to claim there is a "proper" way to do anything in latex ;). – cheshirekow Aug 29 '12 at 14:43

score 7 · Answer 6 · edited May 14 '11 at 07:23

7

\renewcommand{\@listI}{%
\leftmargin=25pt
\rightmargin=0pt
\labelsep=5pt
\labelwidth=20pt
\itemindent=0pt
\listparindent=0pt
\topsep=0pt plus 2pt minus 4pt
\partopsep=0pt plus 1pt minus 1pt
\parsep=0pt plus 1pt
\itemsep=\parsep}

edited May 14 '11 at 07:23

Nemo157

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answered Jun 30 '09 at 09:13

Alexey Malistov

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This reduces a lot of the whitespace around the list, but fails to remove some of the whitespace immediately above and below the list itself. – jevon Jul 13 '11 at 05:03
This does not work for me... it throws an error unless the code is put inside `\begin{document}`, and even after doing that, it leaves a mysterious `istI` at the beginning of the title page of the PDF. – Yan King Yin Apr 02 '21 at 11:04
Where should I put it? – alper Jan 14 '22 at 18:03

score 7 · Answer 7 · answered Jun 30 '09 at 09:35

7

I'm very happy with the paralist package. Besides adding the option to eliminate the space it also adds other nice things like compact versions of the itemize, enumerate and describe environments.

answered Jun 30 '09 at 09:35

Fabian Steeg

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Specifically, Fabian is referring to asparaitem, asparaenum and asparadesc and to other things like compactittem, compactenum and compactdesc. aspara does create a new paragraph still. This is still slightly annoying if you're putting them in a table without a preceding paragraph, as I am, but I suspect that there's a less ugly hack to fix this. – Avery Richardson Jan 30 '12 at 12:09

Eliminate space before \begin{itemize}

7 Answers7