Document Defaults

The first formatting information which is applied to all regions of text in a WordprocessingML document when that document is displayed is the document defaults. The document defaults specify the default set of properties which shall be inherited by every paragraph and run of text within all stories of the current WordprocessingML document. If no other formatting information was referenced by that text, these properties would solely define the formatting of the resulting text.

example:

<w:body>
  <w:p>
    <w:r>
      <w:t>Hello world!</w:t>
    </w:r>
  </w:p>
</w:body>

This paragraph and run of text both specify no formatting information (i.e. the paragraph and run possess neither a <pPr> element nor an <rPr> element respectively). Therefore, the only formatting applied to this text shall be the formatting in the document defaults which is applied to all paragraphs and runs in the document.

Note that this does not imply that these properties are only applied to text with no formatting - they are rather applied to all text before all other formatting (and in this case, there is no other formatting). ]