I hope this is filed under the correct discussion group...

I'm wondering whether Word provides a simple method to prevent a blank line
from appearing directly after a soft/non-manual page break (i.e. from being
at the top of a page).  When my firm produces Word files, they like to have a
uniform distance between the document header and the body text.

Is there perhaps a way of making those page-topping blank lines "disappear"?
I would like the same kind of behaviour that spaces have at the end of a
paragraph: one can append spaces to the end of a paragraph so that they
extend beyond the right margin with no consequence.

Two possibilities are (a) to omit empty lines and instead adjust all
paragraph spacing to 12 points after, or (b) to "keep with next" every
paragraph that precedes a blank line.  Neither of these options is appealing.

Any thoughts?

Andrew