When you make the same change to every document that you create, it can be tedious to perform that action before you start your document. One way around this is to use different default settings. For example, you may want to know how to change the default font in Microsoft Word if you don’t like using the current default.
New installations of Microsoft Word for Office 365 will use the Calibri font by default. But if you want to use Arial or Times New Roman, and are tired of making the switch every time, then it’s possible to skip that step.
Many of the formatting options that are applied to a document can be used by default, meaning that new documents will use those options once they have been applied.
Our guide below is going to show you how to set the default font in Microsoft Word so that you can save yourself some time, and avoid any mistakes that might occur if you happen to forget to change the font.
How to Change the Default Font in Word for Office 365
- Open Word.
- Select the Home tab.
- Click the Font button.
- Click the Font dropdown and choose the font.
- Click Set as Default.
- Choose the All documents based on the Normal.dotm option, then click OK.
Our article continues below with additional information on changing the default font in Word for Office 365, including pictures of these steps.
How to Set a New Default Font in Microsoft Word for Office 365 (Guide with Pictures)
The steps in this article were performed in the Office 365 verswion of Word, but will work in most other versions of Word as well.
Note that this is only going to change the font for new documents going forward. Any existing documents, or documents that you receive from someone else, will retain their current font.
Step 1: Open Microsoft Word.
Step 2: Choose the Home tab at the top of the window.
Step 3: Select the small Font button at the bottom-right corner of the Font section of the ribbon.
Step 4: Click the Font dropdown menu near the top of the window, then select the font that you would like to use as the default.
Note that a preview of that font will appear at the bottom of the window. You can also change things like the size, style, and color of the font, if you wish.
Step 5: Click the Set as Default button at the bottom-left corner of the window.
Step 6: Click the circle to the left of the All documents based on the Normal.dotm option, then click the OK button to apply the change.
Now you can close Word and open it back up. If you create a new document it will be using the default font that you just selected. You can perform this action at any time to adjust the default font for new documents.
Once you know how to change default font in Office 365 with the steps that we outline above you will be able to navigate back to the font dialog box that we had open if you would like to update the font style that you use for a new blank document if you would like to make additional changes to the default font setting used by the normal template.
Our guide continues below with additional discussion about how to set default fonts in Microsoft Word.
Frequently Asked Questions About How to Set Defaults in Word
How do I install more Office 365 fonts?
If the font that you want to use in your document isn’t currently installed on your computer then you will need to acquire the font file and install it.
You can do this by going somewhere like Google Fonts, downloading your preferred file, then right-clicking on the font file and extracting it.
You can then right-click on the extracted font file and choose the “Install” option to add it to your computer. That installed font will then be available for you to use in Office 365 applications.
Where can I find the templates folder for Microsoft Word?
We have discussed how to open the Font menu by clicking the font dialog box launcher so that you could adjust the default font size and other font settings, but those apply to the Normal template.
If you want to create a new template, or if you have already made one and would like ot find the file, then you will need to know how to get to the Microsoft Word templates folder.
You can find this file by opening the File Explorer (you can click the folder icon in the taskbar to do this) then navigate to that folder at:
C:\Users\”YourUserName”\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates
You would just need to replace the “YourUserName” part of that file path with your actual username.
If I update the default font in Microsoft Word, will it also update for Microsoft Powerpoint, Excel, Outlook, etc?
No, the default font setting for Microsoft Office applications is different, and there are default font settings for any custom office templates that you have created in those applications.
That means that if you have created a new Powerpoint template, then you will have to open that select Powerpoint template and then choose your favorite font for that particular template or theme.
In Microsoft Excel you can click the File tab at the top left corner of the window, click the Options button in the left column, then adjust the different font settings on the General tab to select your preferred font when creating new workbooks.
Microsoft Outlook settings for new mail messages, replying, or forwarding messages can also have default fonts.
Note that whether or not you can use certain fonts will depend on the message format. For example, you will have fewer options when creating plain text messages, as there are limited options for those emails when people are reading plain text messages.
You can use more fonts when you are writing an HTML or rich text email message, though, and you can use extra formatting options similar to those that you have available to you when editing Microsoft Word documents.