Eliminate space before \begin{itemize}

The way to fix this sort of problem is to redefine the relevant list environment. The enumitem package is my favourite way to do this sort of thing; it has many options and parameters that can be varied, either for all lists or for each list individually.

Here's how to do (something like) what it is I think you want:

\usepackage{enumitem}
\setlist{nolistsep}

or

\usepackage{enumitem}
\setlist{nosep}

Try \vspace{-5mm} before the itemize.

• Use \vspace{-\topsep} before \begin{itemize}
• Use \setlength{\parskip}{0pt} \setlength{\itemsep}{0pt plus 1pt} after \begin{itemize}
• And for the space after the list, use \vspace{-\topsep} after \end{itemize}

\vspace{-\topsep}
\begin{itemize}
  \setlength{\parskip}{0pt}
  \setlength{\itemsep}{0pt plus 1pt}
  \item ...
  \item ...
\end{itemize}
\vspace{-\topsep}

The "proper" LaTeX ways to do it is to use a package which allows you to specify the spacing you want. There are several such package, and these two pages link to lists of them...

• TeX FAQ entry How to adjust list spacing
• http://dcwww.camd.dtu.dk/~schiotz/comp/LatexTips/LatexTips.html

\renewcommand{\@listI}{%
\leftmargin=25pt
\rightmargin=0pt
\labelsep=5pt
\labelwidth=20pt
\itemindent=0pt
\listparindent=0pt
\topsep=0pt plus 2pt minus 4pt
\partopsep=0pt plus 1pt minus 1pt
\parsep=0pt plus 1pt
\itemsep=\parsep}

I'm very happy with the paralist package. Besides adding the option to eliminate the space it also adds other nice things like compact versions of the itemize, enumerate and describe environments.