Change Title Spacing

Question

I am currently trying to fulfill the layout requirements of my university, which request vertical spacing of 24pt before and 12pt after section titles. I am using the titlesec package, but every time I try to set the document, I only get problems. In my document, I am using \section, \subsection, \section* and \subsection*, yet it doesn't work. My preamble`s code looks like this:

\documentclass[a4paper,12pt,draft]{article}

\usepackage{ucs}
\usepackage[utf8x]{inputenc} % Eingabekodierung: UTF-8
\usepackage{fixltx2e} % Schickere Ausgabe
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc} % ordentliche Trennung
\usepackage[french,USenglish,UKenglish,ngerman]{babel}
\usepackage{lmodern} % ordentliche Schriften
\usepackage[babel,style=swiss]{csquotes}
\usepackage{extsizes}

\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage[top=2.5cm,bottom=3.5cm,left=2.5cm,right=4cm]{geometry}
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\usepackage{lettrine}

\usepackage{titlesec}
    \titlespacing*{\section}{}{24pt}{12pt}
    \titlespacing{\section*}{}{24pt}{12pt}
    \titlespacing*{\subsection}{}{24pt}{12pt}
    \titlespacing*{\subsection*}{}{24pt}{12pt}

\usepackage[]{acronym}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\pagestyle{fancy}
\renewcommand{\sectionmark}[1]{\markright{#1}}
\fancyhf{}
\rhead{\rightmark}
\lhead{} 
\rfoot{\thepage}

% \pagenumbering{arabic}

Answer 1

titlespacing does not allow the starred \section* commands as arguments. Instead, a \section* gets the same spacing that you set for a normal, numbered \section. Simply replace your four \titlespacing commands with the two from the code below.

---

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}

\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}


\usepackage{titlesec}
\titlespacing{\section}{0pt}{24pt}{12pt}
\titlespacing{\subsection}{0pt}{24pt}{12pt}

\usepackage{blindtext}
\begin{document}
\blindtext
\section*{Testsection}
\blindtext
\section{Testsection}
\blindtext
\blinddocument
\end{document}