Microsoft Office allows you to use any font that you like in your documents. However, it doesn’t save your font settings when you close those Office programs. This then requires you to select your preferred font each time you create a new document.

If you tend to use a certain font in your Office documents, it’s a good idea to set that font as the default font in all your Office applications. There are ways to change the default font in various applications including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook.

Table of Contents
    How To Change The Default Font In Office Apps image 1

    How To Change The Default Font In Microsoft Word

    Setting a default font in Microsoft Word is fairly easy, and you don’t need to edit configuration files to do this.

    1. Launch Microsoft Word.
    How To Change The Default Font In Office Apps image 2
    1. Click the option that says Blank document on the right-hand side pane to create a new document.
    How To Change The Default Font In Office Apps image 3
    1. On the document editing screen, click the arrow icon in the font section to open the font settings menu.
    How To Change The Default Font In Office Apps image 4
    1. You can now select your preferred font that you want to set as the default font. Use the dropdown menus to set custom styling as well for your font. Then click the Set As Default button at the bottom.
    How To Change The Default Font In Office Apps image 5
    1. Word will ask what type of documents you want to set the selected font as the default for. Select the All documents based on the Normal.dotm template option and click OK.
    How To Change The Default Font In Office Apps image 6
    1. Click OK once again.

    Microsoft Word will now use your selected font as the default for all your blank template documents. If you use any other templates, Word will use the default font for those.

    How To Change The Default Font In Microsoft Excel

    Microsoft Excel lets you configure several options for your new spreadsheets. These options include the font size, default view for the sheets, the number of sheets to create, and the font style.

    To change the default font in Excel:

    1. Launch Excel and create a new spreadsheet.
    How To Change The Default Font In Office Apps image 7
    1. Click the File tab at the top-left corner.
    How To Change The Default Font In Office Apps image 8
    1. At the bottom in the left sidebar, you have an option that says Options. Click it to open the Excel settings menu.
    How To Change The Default Font In Office Apps image 9
    1. Select General from the options available in the left sidebar.
    2. Scroll down the right-hand side pane until you see the When creating new workbooks section. Under this section, click the Use this as the default font dropdown menu and select your new default font.
    How To Change The Default Font In Office Apps image 10
    1. Click OK at the bottom to save your changes.

    How To Change The Default Font In Microsoft PowerPoint

    Microsoft PowerPoint lets you apply a specific font to all slides in your current presentation but you can’t set a default for all new presentations. You can, however, create a template that’ll use your chosen font on all presentations based on this template.

    Set a Default Font For Your Entire Current Presentation

    1. Open your presentation with PowerPoint.
    How To Change The Default Font In Office Apps image 11
    1. Click the View tab at the top.
    How To Change The Default Font In Office Apps image 12
    1. Select Slide Master on the following screen.
    How To Change The Default Font In Office Apps image 13
    1. Make sure you’re inside the Slide Master tab. Then click Fonts under the Background section.
    How To Change The Default Font In Office Apps image 14
    1. You can now select a default font for your current presentation.
    2. Click Customize Fonts at the bottom to view more options.
    How To Change The Default Font In Office Apps image 15
    1. PowerPoint will now let you specify a few more options for your default font. Enter a name for this font style at the bottom and click Save to save the customizations.
    How To Change The Default Font In Office Apps image 16

    Create a Template With a Default Font

    You can make a presentation template with your chosen font and all your future presentations using this template will use your selected font.

    1. Open PowerPoint, click the View tab, and select Slide Master.
    2. Click Fonts under the Slide Master tab and specify your default font.
    3. You now need to save these settings as a template. Click File at the top and select Save As from the left sidebar.
    How To Change The Default Font In Office Apps image 17
    1. Click Browse on the right-hand side pane.
    How To Change The Default Font In Office Apps image 18
    1. Navigate to your Documents folder and select the Custom Office Templates folder.

      Enter a name for your template, select PowerPoint Template from the Save as type dropdown menu, and click Save.
    How To Change The Default Font In Office Apps image 19
    1. To use this template to create new presentations, click New on PowerPoint’s main interface and choose Personal followed by your template name.
    How To Change The Default Font In Office Apps image 20

    How To Change The Default Font In Microsoft Outlook

    One good thing about Outlook is that it lets you set a default font for various purposes. You can set a default font for new emails or you can set a default font for replying to or forwarding emails.

    Change The Default Font In Outlook For Desktop

    1. Open Microsoft Outlook.
    How To Change The Default Font In Office Apps image 21
    1. Click the File tab at the top.
    How To Change The Default Font In Office Apps image 22
    1. Select Options from the left sidebar.
    How To Change The Default Font In Office Apps image 23
    1. Click the Mail tab in the box that opens on your screen.
    2. From the right-hand side pane, choose the Stationery and Fonts button.
    How To Change The Default Font In Office Apps image 24
    1. You can now set a default font for Outlook. Click Font under the New mail messages section to choose a font from your system.
    How To Change The Default Font In Office Apps image 25
    1. Click Font under the Replying or forwarding messages section to set a different default font for your email replies and forwards.
    How To Change The Default Font In Office Apps image 26
    1. Finally, click OK at the bottom to save your changes.

    Change The Default Font In Outlook For Web

    You can’t choose from fonts stored on your computer when using Outlook for web, but it does have a good number of pre-installed fonts to choose from.

    1. Open the Outlook web in your browser.
    2. Log-in to your Outlook account.
    3. Click the settings icon at the top-right corner and select View all Outlook settings.
    How To Change The Default Font In Office Apps image 27
    1. Click Compose and reply.
    How To Change The Default Font In Office Apps image 28
    1. Scroll down the right-hand side pane until you see the Message format section. Under this section, click the fonts dropdown menu and choose a new default font for the Outlook web.
    How To Change The Default Font In Office Apps image 29
    1. Click Save at the bottom to save your settings.

    Changing the default font in your frequently used Office applications can save a lot of time. In case the font you’re looking for isn’t available, you can add fonts to Microsoft Word and other applications on your computer.

    What’s your favorite font for your Office documents? Is it the default Calibri font or do you still use Times New Roman? Let us know in the comments below.