# Trouble with spacing between section title and equations

I am trying to create a formula sheet so I only have section titles and equations in my documents. I am having trouble with the spacing between my section header and the equations that I want as the body of the text. LaTeX is putting an empty line between the section header and the equations which leaves an awkward-looking gap.

I have tried using \titlespacing, \titleformat, as well as \abovedisplayskip, \abovedisplayshortskip, \belowdisplayskip, and \belowdisplayshortskip. However, I don't think these worked because the problem is not that there's too much space between the text and the equation, but rather that there's a blank line above the equation and below the section title.

The code I have is:

\documentclass[leqno, fleqn,12pt]{article}
\usepackage{mathtools}
\usepackage{xfrac}
\usepackage{multicol}

\begin{document}

\section*{List of Common Derivatives}
\subsection*{POLYNOMIAL FUNCTIONS}

\begin{multicols}{3}

\begin{equation*}
\frac{d}{dx} \left(c\right) = 0 %,where c is a constant
\end{equation*}

\begin{equation*}
\frac{d}{dx} \left(cx\right) = c
\end{equation*}

\begin{equation*}
\frac{d}{du} \left(u^n\right) = nu^{n-1}du
\end{equation*}

\end{multicols}

\end{document}

I'm trying to eliminate the space between "Polynomial Functions" and the equations below. Any ideas? Thanks!

• Welcome to TeX.SX! You can have a look at our starter guide to familiarize yourself further with our format. – karlkoeller Mar 6 '15 at 7:32

The awkward spacing here is most likely as a result of the equation and the multicols. The following looks a little better, and doesn't require spreading out separate non-numbered equations into columns:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}

% \deriv[<var>]{<func>}
\newcommand{\deriv}[2][x]{\frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}#1}\bigl(#2\bigr)}

\begin{document}

\section*{List of Common Derivatives}
\subsection*{POLYNOMIAL FUNCTIONS}

\begin{align*}
\deriv{c}      &= 0 &%,where c is a constant
\deriv{cx}     &= c &
\deriv[u]{u^n} &= nu^{n-1}
\end{align*}

\end{document}

See the mathmode document for displays of how align and friends works (or How to write a mathematical formula in 2 lines?).

• Akh! I was just about to post almost the same, but I used the align* environment instead of xalignat*. I believe the PDF results are the same (from what I can see). The mathmode document says that xalignat is obsolete. Is align* the replacement? – Bill N Mar 6 '15 at 4:18
• @BillN: Prolly... I'll update to use align* instead. – Werner Mar 6 '15 at 4:22

You don't need multicols for this. Just add some spacing between equations (I've added a double \qquad

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}

\newcommand{\deriv}[2][x]{\frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}#1}\bigl(#2\bigr)}

\begin{document}

\section*{List of Common Derivatives}
\subsection*{POLYNOMIAL FUNCTIONS}

\begin{equation*}