There needs to be a Default setting for font effects.

There needs to be a Default setting for font effects.

The font dialogue box has Default options for Family, Size, Weight and Style yet does not have a Default option for effects (Underline, Overline, Line through). This makes it difficult to turn an effect off when you have nested objects with font formatting set.

A simple use case – on a page I have 10 text items. For 9 of the text items, I want the text underlined. To do the minimal possible formatting I will set the font on the Page. I will set the Page Font effect underline to on. Now whenever I add a text item to the page the item will automatically be underlined as it inherits the underlined property of the parent.

If I look at the Font Properties of the text item, it shows that Underline is off. But it isn’t off, it is default as we can clearly see the text is underlined on the page.

I now want to add a single text item. Unlike the other text items on page, I do not want this item underlined. There is no way for me to make this text not underlined. If I go to the properties of this text item, I cannot switch underline off.

Contrast this with if I wanted everything on a page bold. I want every text item on a page to be bold. I set the font property of the page to be bold. Every text item I place on the page is now automatically bold as it inherits the bold property from the parent object. I haven’t set the weight of these text items. When these text items are added, their font weight property is Default, not on or off. I now want a single text object that isn’t bold. When I first add the text item it is automatically bold. But on this one text item I can simply change the font property weight from default to normal. This is how all font properties should work.