Unstyled text is dependent on the default font of the application displaying the message.

The default unstyled font for Wild Apricot and the default unstyled font for your email software may not be the same. There is no such thing as a universal unstyled font, as all fonts are effectively a style.

One option is that you could write your messages in a font different from Open-sans to avoid this issue, as you would be able to see the difference if something wasn't styled. Arial and Verdana are both popular sans-serif fonts.

For our organization, we create and test templates. Then, we can simply fill in the areas that are pre-styled with the appropriate message whenever a situation arises.

Hi, Paul
As you probably know, html elements have many styles targeting them, and the editor only gives the final, computed value.
This problem which you described is more complicated, we (as a emailing dev team) will address it to Editor developers.

Have a nice day,
Alexis. Husky crew at Wild Apricot (Emailing development crew).

OK, I think I am seeing what the problem is.

Often when I send myself a test email it comes out in a mix of font sizes even though it looked like they were all the same size in the editor window.

The problem is that the indicator always shows a font style and size even when text is unstyled.

At the moment I have a line of text in the editor. It is just in a <p> tag with no styling. But the indicators read 'Serif' and '16'. So I can't tell if the text is styled or unstyled.

All you need are 'None' options in the dropdowns to show that elements are unstyled.

Does this make sense?

Hi, Paul.

Thanks for explanation.
I really, can't understand how it's possible that themed styles have an impact on styles in email editor. Never seen such situation yet.

Editing area is separate iframe, which prevent themed styles impact.
More, in our last releases we've changed our template structure and made it layout-base (indestructible structure with several editable areas). Each template has it's own basic typography.

Maybe, you should take a look on our new templates (you can find it on Email Templates page in Basic and Themed categories) and try use them?
If you can record a short video with your problem and send to us (husky.crew@wildapricot.com) it will be great. Thanks.

Regards,
Artem. Husky crew at Wild Apricot (Emailing development crew).

Makes sense, thank you for clarification. Opening.

Hi, I don't think my comment was understood and I don't believe it should be closed.

The example of Open Sans doesn't matter, it could have been Arial or anything else. I understand email coding.

The problem is with website CSS being applied while you are editing an email, so you can't see what the actual styling of the email is. E.g my website styles text as Comic Sans 12. *Unstyled* text in the editor window will still look like Comic Sans 12 because the website CSS is applied.

I am saying that the email editor window should be a 'sandbox' where website CSS is not applied.

Hi, Paul.

Thanks, that you focused our attention on this problem. Sorry for this experience. We have an issue on this theme already.

It's not correct that in email we allow to use themed fonts, and i can explain why.

Email clients have very poor support of fonts. Technically, you can use any font you like in an email. But you can not predict what email clients your subscribers use.
And I recommend you to use in emails web-safe set of fonts and you can be sure that most of your subscribers will see those font which you used in email.

The following set of fonts are considered web-safe:
Arial
Comic Sans MS
Courier New
Georgia
Lucida Sans Unicode
Tahoma
Times New Roman
Trebuchet MS
Verdana

In future releases we'll plan to fix this bug - displaying themed fonts in email editor dropdown, and allow to use only web-safe fonts in emails.

Regards,
Artem. Husky crew at Wild Apricot (Emailing development crew).