Set Default Font and Font Size for all new documents
Changing the default character style in Illustrator should be permanent when creating new documents. Font size 12 is rarely used for any project I've designed, and Myriad Pro is used even less so, from my experience. Having to change this every time is user friction that is unnecessary, when we could define our own font and font size that is more applicable to one's intended use of Illustrator. It's a minor inconvenience that adds up to an annoyance over time, and I hope that in the future we have the ability to skip this step.
The intended way of setting a default font is to edit document profiles. These files are located in folders like 'C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Illustrator 2023\Support Files\Required\New Document Profiles\[language]\' on Windows and 'Macintosh HD > Applications ▸ Adobe Illustrator 2020 > Support Files > New Document Profiles > [language]' on Macs.
Make a copy of the one you want to use someplace else, open it in Illustrator, make your changes, replace the original and then use it when creating a new file.
There are many tutorials on the web about managing these, like this one: https://productivista.com/new-document-profiles-saves-your-default-settings/
However, this way indeed is not the most discoverable. Please continue to vote and leave comments if you want this to be improved.
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Michael commented
Why do we have to go through the complicated hassle of making custom document profiles to change the default font to something other than Myriad?
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Anonymous commented
There should be a way to set default fonts for all language inputs. I use traditional chinese in a lot of my work but the default font uses japanese Kanji, which doesn't hold all the traditional chinese characters, making it difficult for me to change every time.