Am 18.08.2014 um 09:29 schrieb Robert Blackstone :

On 17 aug. 2014, at 20:06, wrot

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On 2014-08-15, 19:56, Robert Blackstone wrote:

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A few days ago I posted this question. There were no reactions, but it is not an urgent matter for me anymore since I found an effective work-around. (Although I still wonder whether or not this possibility exists in mkiv,)

I have not seen the issue you have described myself. The attached example works for me. You have to prepare a minimal working example that shows the problem. Maybe then somebody can identify the reason for your issue.

******************************************** Hello Joshua, Thanks for your reaction. The minimal example you gave works here as well, but it does not really concern the problem I had.

When you add a section right at the beginning of the chapter, as is the case for nearly all of the chapters of my project, things become different. Here is your ME with sections added:

=================================================== \starttext

%\startfrontmatter %\input knuth %\stopfrontmatter

\startbodymatter

\setuphead [chapter] [ number=yes, alternative=middle, style=\tfa \bf, after={\blank[0.5cm]}, ]

\chapter{One} \section{One a} \input knuth

\setuphead [chapter] [ number=yes, alternative=middle, style=\tfa \bf, after={\blank[0.1cm]}, ]

\chapter{Two}

\section{Two a} \input knuth

\stopbodymatter

\stoptext =================================================== Despite different setups for the chapter head the distances: chapter head - section head - beginning of the text, are identical in both chapters (±1 pixel). But I have realized now, a bit late, that for real control over these distances one also needs to setup the section-head in a similar manner, additionally specifying the distance "before". The presence or absence of Frontmatter does not influence results. I think there must have been a setup command somewhere in my setups that I had forgotten about.

You’re forgetting that \section insert also a space before the text is placed. In a case where two commands insert a space at the same position like here the larger value is used which comes in the second chapter from the \section command. Wolfgang