I think the FAQ needs a paragraph saying we can apply default formatting to highlighted text by clicking “No style” in the styles dropdown. (But caveat emptor: changing the default won’t affect existing “No style” text until you apply it again.)
No it doesn’t, because that isn’t actually true. “No Style” removes an applied style, but does not change the formatting of arbitrary unstyled text.
“No Style” is not a style and does not behave like one.
I didn’t check the video, I checked actual text, and you can too.
Type some text. Apply bold formatting. Go type something else. Go back and select the bold formatting. Select “No Style” from the style menu. Probably nothing happens. (Also, in this case, “No Style” is probably already checked.)
Well the primary purpose of the feature is to (a) remove style assignments from the selected text or current paragraph, lacking one, and (b) removing style assignments from the cursor, so you can continue typing without using the style you had been typing with.
It does indeed have secondary capabilities for removing regular old sloppy formatting as well. When invoked while the cursor is in a paragraph, the effect is much like using the Documents ▸ Convert ▸ Text to Default Formatting command on that one paragraph all by itself, with default settings. For some kinds of character formatting though, the range must be fully selected in order for it to work, like resetting the font weight to regular, from lighter or heavier.
Therefore I find the tool a little too intricate and touchy to be described in the FAQ, which mainly concerns itself with cleaning up bulk problems, where the menu command is the best tool for the job.
Update: it’s more complicated than that, as it turns out. I wish I knew the precise rule, but I can do without it.
Original: Since I figured out how it works, I’ve found it VERY useful. It removes everything but the default format, which is crucial to using styles — especially character styles.
Agreed! It’s a very useful tool that I use a lot as well. The main reason I worry it’s not a good fit for that FAQ entry is that it is a little more advanced in how its usage is so varied, and the main purpose for sending people to that entry is new folk just learning how Scrivener isn’t a word processor and all that, how default formatting works, etc. Conciseness is important there.
So is accuracy. I got into this because I saw people describing No style as if it’s the default style, which it is not. This also seems inaccurate:
The circumstances under which “No Style” has the same behavior as “Revert to Default Formatting” are specific enough that it is inaccurate to treat the two commands as equivalent.
It certainly is not accurate to say that, for any arbitrary text,
True. It’s perfect for what I’m doing, but its behavior in general seems erratic in several ways.
“default formatting” is a paragraph style, not a character or ¶a style – or so I believe.
If that’s true, applying it to text should never remove bold or italics. I think (in some contexts at least) leaving bold and italics alone is the desired behavior.
Yet removing them is helpful for the way I’m working. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t, but it works in the right combination of situations for me.