We present a detailed study of the magnetic properties of cobalt films with wide-area nanoscale ripple patterns, either on their surface only, or on both the film surface and substrate interface. Angular dependence vectorial-resolved magnetometry measurements and magnetic force microscopy with in situ magnetic field have been used to determine the magnetization reversal processes to correlate them to the different patterned nanostructures. All the samples show well-defined uniaxial magnetic anisotropy with the anisotropy axis lying along the ripple direction. Atomic force microscopy of the different types of pattern reveals various pattern defects: height corrugation and breaks of continuity along the ripple direction, and overlapping ripples and Y-shaped defects (pattern dislocation) across the pattern. In spite of the existence of such customary defects of erosive-regime patterns, the type of low-amplitude, surface-patterned films remarkably behave as a macrospin over almost the whole in-plane angular range (340°), with negligible spread of anisotropy axis or energy. In turn, it is found that high-amplitude surface-patterned films develop an angular distribution of anisotropy axes, probably related to the large distribution of amplitudes in a pattern of short ripples, and a significant distribution of anisotropy fields ΔHk/Hk up to 15%. On the other hand, films grow on pre-patterned silicon with a significantly longer mean ripple length, and develop a larger anisotropy energy with Hk up to 110 mT, probably because of the double interface effect. The switching fields close to the magnetization easy axis of all types of ripple pattern are not well reproduced by the macrospin approximation, but the observed pattern defects seem to be not responsible for the domain wall pinning that occurs with the field applied along the ripple direction.