Defaults

A <defaults> block declares the attribute values a tag should assume when an instance leaves them out. Each child is an element tag carrying those values — <text size="11pt"/> makes every later <text> default to that size, so you set the document's body size once instead of repeating it on every paragraph. It is the terse counterpart to writing the attribute by hand, and an explicit attribute on the element always wins.

Where a block can go

A <defaults> block may appear anywhere a child element may:

• in <config>, for the whole document;
• at the top of a <page>, for that page;
• inside any container — a <box>, a <vertical>, a table <cell> — for the content within it.

It applies positionally, scoped to its parent

A block is not a property of its parent; it is a point in the flow. It restyles the content that follows it among its siblings, and that content's descendants — never what precedes it, and never anything outside its parent. So:

• a later block at the same level overrides an earlier one, for the content after it;
• a block nested in a container scopes to that container — its effect ends where the container does.

This is what makes defaults composable: a section can set its own body size without disturbing the rest of the page, and a sidebar box can pick a smaller size that evaporates the moment the box closes.

It is transparent, not a block

A <defaults> is a directive, not content — it renders nothing and takes no space. Crucially it is not a block either, so dropping one in the middle of a paragraph does not break the line: the text after it keeps flowing in the new style, exactly as a <font> would, just declared once for everything that follows. The example below is live — edit any size or colour and watch the change ripple forward, on the same line and into the nested box:

Resolution order

An attribute resolves in this order, the first hit winning:

1. the attribute written on the element itself;
2. the nearest enclosing <defaults> — walking outward from the element and, at each level, taking the closest block declared before it (innermost and latest first);
3. the document-wide <config> defaults;
4. the element's built-in default.

Defaults cover ordinary attributes only. style:* attributes (background, border, margin, …) are resolved separately and never read a <defaults> block.

Defaults and bare text

A container's bare text is built as if you had written a <text>, so it honours <text> defaults too — including a block placed just before it or wrapping it. Set the body size once and every bare-text cell, box, and list item picks it up, with no inner <text> to annotate: