page-breakingspacing
I'd like to, first thing before writing anything on a page, add some vertical space.
Minimal (non)working example:
\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\vspace{250px}
I want to be further down on the page :(
\vspace{250px}
Haha! Sucker :D
\end{document}
How can I get the first \vspace to work, just like the second one?
You are looking for \addvspace.
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{relsize}
\newcounter{annotation}
% \def\theannotation{\arabic{annotation}}% superfluous with \newcounter
\newenvironment{annotation}
{\par\addvspace{\baselineskip}\refstepcounter{annotation}\noindent\begin{smaller}
\makebox[1.5cm][l]{NOTE \theannotation}}
{\end{smaller}\par\addvspace{\baselineskip}}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\begin{document}
\begin{annotation}
\lipsum[1]
\end{annotation}
\begin{description}
\item[aaa] asdfasdfasdf
\end{description}
\begin{annotation}
\lipsum[1]
\end{annotation}
\end{document}
EDIT: Added missing \par before \addvspace.
There's an undocumented feature in LaTeX which directly comes from Plain TeX:
\filbreak
This is an abbreviation for
\par\vfil\penalty-200\vfilneg
which does exactly what you need. First it issues \par to ensure vertical mode; then it issues \vfil and \penalty-200. A page break can be taken either at \vfil or at \penalty-200, but not at \vfilneg (because it's preceded by a penalty).
In any case, if the three items end together in a page, the two glues will cancel each other (and the penalty will do nothing). If instead a break is taken at the penalty, the \vfil will fill the page and the \vfilneg will disappear because it's at the top of a new page.
The -200 penalty denotes a good place where breaking a page.
Best Answer
The space added by
\vspaceis deleted at the beginning of the page, as you have seen. The command\vspace*adds the space that is not deleted.