I am in the process of formatting my dissertation, and I need some help.
One of the formatting requirements is that for pages that begin with a new chapter heading (e.g., "CHAPTER 3. METHODS"), the top margin of the page must be 2". The rest of the pages must have a 1" top margin.



So me being 1 month away from having a PhD, I "intelligently" realized that all pages in the document must have at least a 1" top margin, and that I already have a custom style defined for chapter headings. So, I went ahead and defined a "Before" spacing value of 72pt for the custom heading style. That puts an extra inch of space before my headings only, and should be the end of it.

The problem I am having (Word 2016) is that this extra spacing is only recognized if I already have a blank line between the chapter heading and the top of the page. If the chapter heading is in the first line, it doesn't matter if my "Before" spacing is 7200pt, that heading will stay stuck at exactly 1" below the top of the paper.

Can anyone help me figure out why this is happening, and what a proper fix would be?

I figured it out. Apparently Word ignores "Before" spacing on the first line of a page unless that page is preceded by a hard section break (aka, a "Next Page" break). A simple Page Break won't cut it.

I think this is kind of stupid, and I would be interested to know the rationale. Anyways, I figured I would keep this up here, as it may help someone else.