How to format submit button

One more question.  Why I can't format the submit button.

I have simple orange (or anything else) selected, but it still only shows an outline with a white button.

You can change the background color of submit button inside of form Designer. Open your form Designer and click on Submit button, then open background color menu and add this code #ff6c00 to change color to orange. 

On mine demo form I have also set font color of submit button to be white.

Here is my demo form: https://form.jotform.com/53236347056960? 

Hope this will help. Let us know if you need further assistance.

Thank you.

However, why the standard way of doing it (from field preferences) does not work.  It works on other forms.

The designer is not easy to work with and has un-expected behavior that is scary when designing forms.

Are you referring to changing the stile of submit button by injecting Custom CSS, like it is described in this guide? I did not saw your code when I inspected your form. Maybe code that you added was in conflict with some other code. That is why we always suggest that new code should be added at the bottom of existing code with !important rule, so that new code can not be overridden by other code. 

I always use Form Designer for this type of issues. I know that, like you mentioned, sometimes form Designer has un-expected behavior, but in that cases you can always use Form Revision History to revert your form to previous state or you can contact JotForm support and we will be happy to assist you.

Feel free to contact us if you have any other questions.