Margins change between desktop and mobile

Charles,

I think that you got that back to front.  You want to set the distance of the header from the edge of the page to 0 so that it does not affect the top margin as it may if it is set to a value that is more than the top margin.

Here the header distance is set to 0 and the top margin is set to 5mm

This is what happens if the top margin is 5mm and the distance of the header from the edge of the page is set to the default of 12.5mm (1/2")

Sure, when you close the Header pane, the top margin reverts to where you expect it to be on the machine on which your are creating the document.

However, it's when the document is re-laid out when opened on another device that the header distance may come into play again.

Hi Doug,

I did open it on my phone. That definitely re-laid out the document.

I'm confused. I want the space setting for the header area to be less than the top margin?

In my test, I had a header area that was further down on the page than the top margin. If it is less than the top margin, why would it even change the text flow on the page?

Hi Charles,

As I said, you may not see the impact of the distance of the header from the edge of the page on the computer on which the document is created.  When however the document is opened on another device and the document needs to be re-laid out to suit the environment of that device, it is very likely that the distance of the header from the edge of the page will come into play again. The way to be sure that it does not have any impact is to set the distance to 0 or at least to a value that is less than the value of the top margin.

Doug,

That was my memory and belief as well. I had already written to KRS pointing out that he/she was ignoring your instructions to check that. It may well be that it is correct most of the time. However, before I said that, I tested in Word 2013. After I checked it in Word 2013, I changed the answer but posted another screen shot of the dialog.

In Word 2013 I accessed the header and created text there. I then returned to the body of the text and made some changes. Then I returned to the header Ctrl+A, Del. When I returned to the body the header was no longer taking up space.

Margins are set to .2 inches. Header and footer distance is set to .5 from edge. You can find this document here.

One thing I did not try was saving with the header before deleting it.

Edit: Same result upon saving with a header, closing, reopening, and deleting the header. No room taken for header.

Document 2013

Just tried with Word 2010 and had same result. document 2010

Also, this was not tried with any alternative headers (first-page/odd-page) in the document.

You continue to overlook the fact that on the Layout tab of the page setup dialog, there is a setting for the distance of the header and footer from the top of the page.  I previously included a screen shot of that dialog that showed the default settings of 12.7mm.

As I have pointed out in my response to Charles Kenyon's belief that that setting is irrelevant in Word 2013, once the Header\Footer pane has been accessed, as appatently it was in your case to remove the header, there will always be an empty paragraph in the header and footer and the distance of that paragraph from the edge of the page will be the distance specified on the Layout tab of the Page Setup dialog.  If that distance is more than the margin setting, the margin can be offset. 

While that may not happen on the computer on which the document was created, it will most definitely occur when the document is re-laid out on another device.

And that is why after you save the document as document y on the Android and then open that document y on the PC you then see the space being taken up by the header.

Here is a question for you:  What do you mean when you say "when I remove a header I do so by removing the element itself"?

Once the header pane has been accessed, there will be an empty paragraph ¶ in it and you cannot remove it via the User Interface, or for that matter by accessing the document xml.