[latex] Eliminate space before \begin{itemize}

In Latex, how do I eliminate the space inserted before itemize?

\begin{itemize} % produces lots of vertical space
\item ...
\item ...
\end{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}

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

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.

\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}

The cleanest way for you to accomplish this is to use the enumitem package (https://ctan.org/pkg/enumitem). For example,

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{enumitem}% http://ctan.org/pkg/enumitem
\begin{document}
\noindent Here is some text and I want to make sure
there is no spacing the different items. 
\begin{itemize}[noitemsep]
  \item Item 1
  \item Item 2
  \item Item 3
\end{itemize}
\noindent Here is some text and I want to make sure
there is no spacing between this line and the item
list below it.
\begin{itemize}[noitemsep,topsep=0pt]
  \item Item 1
  \item Item 2
  \item Item 3
\end{itemize}
\end{document}

Furthermore, if you want to use this setting globally across lists, you can use

\usepackage{enumitem}% http://ctan.org/pkg/enumitem
\setlist[itemize]{noitemsep, topsep=0pt}

However, note that this package does not work well with the beamer package which is used to make presentations in Latex.