Word Style > Set Defaults

[Rudi]

Hi,

Can anyone explain the purpose of the Set Defaults tab in Manage Styles?
If one changes attributes in this tab, what defaults am I setting and what is the scope of these settings?

TX

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[HansV]

Word MVP Tony Jollans briefly tries to explain it in Working with Styles.

[Rudi]

TX. I actually did locate this page too but it is a "brief" analogy... too brief to really get anything from it.
My query is simply for curiosity sake.

[HansV]

According to Jay Freedman, setting the font size of the Normal style in Word 2013 won't propagate to all styles that should use the default font size; setting the font size in the Set Defaults tab will. See How do I change the default font in Word 2013?

[Rudi]

Ah...that is clearer. TX for the find Hans.

Its an interesting development that this tab is now integrated into the global attributes adjustments of fonts. Many of us are still used to the process of modifying the Normal Template and are probably not even aware of this tab and it's settings.

Jay, if you have more information regarding this tab, what its scope is and how it is different to the process of changing settings in the Normal Template (besides that you mention it still "sorta" works and tables are not affected by the latter), please feel free to provide your much respected comments... TX :)

[Jay Freedman]

Rudi, I don't have much more information other than this: At an MVP Summit about 4 years ago I listened to Stuart Stuple, who was then a program manager for Word, explain that the Set Defaults page was an outgrowth of the Theme feature. You may be aware that in the out-of-box setup of Word, most of the styles define the font to be either +Body or +Headings, and the actual fonts assigned to those two names are determined by the theme selected for the document. You can still modify any individual style to use a specific font, which decouples it from the Theme feature. The Set Defaults page is apparently a way to assign a default font, size, etc. for all styles in one place -- at least that's the theory.

As Hans mentioned, there is a glitch/bug/oversight (?) that causes the text in tables to take on some internally determined font characteristics that don't match a modified Normal style. Making the modification in the Set Defaults page does affect both regular and table text. (This ignores the proposal, raised loudly and often by the small band of MVPs who care, that table styles should include font and paragraph formatting, which they never have.)

If asked my opinion, I'd say that both themes and Set Defaults are excessive abstraction that almost no one understands, and they should never have been implemented.

[Rudi]

Thanks Jay. I appreciate the comments. I was putting together some documentation about Styles for a handout for Word and when I came across this tab (Set Defaults) I realized I had nothing descriptive about the options within this tab. Turns out that based on what you and Hans say (as well as further searches I did) there is NOT much more to mention about it. As a matter of fact, it seems to be something to avoid mentioning.

Cheers!