Many thanks Wolfgang I tried using force but that caused a problem with aligning to the grid, not included in my original example, but included below. I think I have seen \mbox used in this way in Latex, so was trying to find a quick solution. James \setuplayout[grid=yes] \showgrid \setuphead[chapter][before={\blank[4*big]}] \starttext \startchapter[title={No space above this chapter}] chapter text etc \stopchapter \setuphead[chapter][before={\blank[4*big,force]}] \startchapter[title={Chapter with spacing but out of line with grid}] chapter text etc \stopchapter \setuphead[chapter][before={\blank[4*line,force]}] \startchapter[title={Chapter with spacing but out of line with grid}] chapter text etc \stopchapter \stoptext On Thu, 18 Jun 2020 at 16:44, Wolfgang Schuster wrote:

James Withers schrieb am 18.06.2020 um 17:35:

...

Hello list

I have been trying to find a solution to how to insert blank lines before a chapter heading at the start of a page. In the following example the \blank[4*big] is ignored. The solution I've found is to add an empty box using \mbox{} before the \blank command.

I'm curious where the use of \mbox is documented.

...

Is this the right way to do it or is there a more elegant way that I am missing?

Many thanks

James

\setuphead[chapter][before={\blank[4*big]}]

You have to add the "force" keyword to \blank because TeX ignores by default vertical space at the begin of a page.

\setuphead[chapter][before={\blank[force,4*big]}]

Wolfgang