Spacing is *not* suppressed after manual page breaks unless you enable the
relevant Compatibility Option. So in this respect "Page break before" is
consistent (though it would be more so if it were also governed by the
Compatibility setting).

This is a subject on which users are understandably polarized. Those who use
PBB casually to manage pagination on the fly don't like Word's behavior;
these users might be better advised to control pagination with "Keep with
next." Those who incorporate PBB in heading styles either include or omit
space before from the style intentionally, depending on the desired effect,
and Word's consistency is desirable.

I fall into the latter camp, though where I really want Space Before
preserved is after section breaks (with the possible exception of Continuous
breaks), since I use section breaks between chapters and want my chapter
headings lower on the page than running text. There are other ways to
achieve this, however, and I could live with a change in behavior.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"SteveP" wrote in message
...
In Word 2003, there is a spacing issue when applying the PageBreakBefore
attribute to a heading style. The PageBreakBefore forces the heading to
the
next page, which is correct, but the spacing before the heading is not
suppressed. However, when a hard page break is inserted or when the
heading
falls naturally at the top of the page the Spacing Before is suppressed.

This leads to an inconsistent spacing at the top of each page and to a
visually unattractive layout.