Tune space around section headings

Question

I am using \Huge centered section headings but the space generated around the heading is too big currently:

I would like to reduce the space around the heading (The "Créé à son image" text) to make it more compact. Here is my current definition:

\renewcommand\thesection{\arabic{section}}
\titleformat{\section}[display]
  {\newpage\scshape\Huge} % format
  {\large\makedate{\thesection}~\chaphead} % label
  {10pt} %sep
  {\begin{center}} %before
  [\end{center}] %after

For the record, makedate a macro that puts the \up{er} on the number in "1er janvier", and \chaphead is a reference to the chapter name, "Janvier" in this case.

I have tried reducing the size from \Huge to \huge or even \LARGE. The font is reduced, but it still takes the same amount of space in the page.

Answer 1

You don't need to use a brute-force solution: the titlesec package provides a \titlespacing command to set these values properly:

\titlespacing*{⟨command⟩}{⟨left⟩}{⟨beforesep⟩}{⟨aftersep⟩}[⟨right⟩]

From the manual:

The starred version kills the indentation of the paragraph following the title, except in drop, wrap and runin where this possibility does not make sense.

• ⟨left⟩ increases the left margin, except in the ...margin, and drop shape, where this parameter sets the title width, in wrap, the maximum width, and in runin, the indentation just before the title. With negative value the title overhangs.
• ⟨beforesep⟩ is the vertical space before the title.
• ⟨aftersep⟩ is the separation between title and text—vertical with hang, block, and display, and horizontal with runin, drop, wrap and ...margin. By making the value negative, you may define an effective space of less than \parskip.
• The hang, block and display shapes have the possibility of increasing the ⟨right⟩ margin with this optional argument.

Answer 2

A kind of brute-force solution might be adding \vspace{-1cm} with some negative value before and after the heading (wherever you want to get rid of vertical space).