Hi,



I have a simple question:

How, for God's sake, do I get rid of the Time New Roman font? Whatever I try, it stays with me. I changed the default font for all documents to verdana, so now new blank documents open seemingly set to verdana, but as soon as I type the first letter, the font changes itself back to Times New Roman. The style indicator in the Toolbox says normal, and that's verdana, but after I type the first letter it changes to "normal+Times New Roman."

When I type some text and the change it manually to verdana, that works, but then I can't continue with verdana, which is what I'd really like to do, but again, it changes to Times New Roman.

I tried every advice I could find online, but nothing works. Im completely helpless now... Word is torturing me, help!

Hi mimirom,

Have you changed the Style definitions for all affected Styles in Word's 'Normal' template? Usually, changing the 'Normal' Style is enough to do this. If you did, it may be that there's some corruption in Word's 'Normal' template. In that case, you might need to close Word, delete the template, then re-start Word and re-edit the new 'Normal' template.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Thanks macropod,

your advice gives me some clue as to what I could try to fix it.

I found out that the other templates (headin 1, heading 2,etc.) seem to work correctly. Furthermore, the Normal template seems to work correctly with Arial font, but not any other fonts. That's kinda fine for now, since Arial is acceptable for me.

Does anyone know where the text template files are located on a Mac? Haven't been successful trying to find them so far...

Thanks

Hi mimirom,

Assuming the info is stored in the same place as in Word 2010: File|Options|Advanced > General > File Locations > User Templates. You may have to choose 'User Templates' then click 'Modify' to see the full path.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

So it was a bit difficult with the new Lion OS but I found the Normal.dotm file and deleted it. Unfortunately nothing changed.

Hi mimirom,

Having let Word recreate the template, you then need to open it for editing (not just create a new document based on it), and edit the Normal Style.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Sorry, I forgot to mention I'm trying to modify it repeatedly with different fonts.

This is the way I'm doing it:

Hi mimirom,

What do you mean by "I'm trying to modify it repeatedly with different fonts"?

From what your image indicates, you've changed the Normal Style's font to 11pt Arial in a document (not the Normal template directly) but you've checked the option to save that back to the document template. In that case, any document you create from whatever the current template is should default to 11pt Arial.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Hi macropod,

by "I'm trying to modify it repeatedly with different fonts" I meant that I tried several times to modify the Normal template (in a document, but with the "add to template" option ticked) by setting it to various fonts as default.

Any new blank document indeed opens by default correctly, according to my latest setting. For instance, I modify the normal template font to Courier (with the "add to template" option ticked) and then close the current document. Then I open a new blank document and that opens set to Courier. But as soon as I hit the keyboard to write the first character, the font selector on the left changes to Times New Roman, and the "current style of selected text" field in the Toolbox changes to "Normal + Times New Roman."

The only case in which my setting actually sticks is when I set the default font to Arial.

It's a mystery. Mybe it's because my name is Roman.

Hi mimirom,

What happens if you open the template directly for editing and edit the Normal Style? When you do so, make sure the Style definition for the following paragraph (in the Modify Style dialogues) is also set to 'Normal' - I note that this doesn't appear to be set in the document you were working on.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Hi macropod,

I'd like to hank you for your ongoing assistance. Appreciate it :-)


I'm not sure what exactly do you mean by "open template directly."

What I've been trying is going to "Tools" -> "Templates and Add-Ins..." In the "Templates and Add-Ins..." window is an "Organizer..." button. There I can copy edit the Normal.dotm file, but I haven't been able to change the problematic behavior of Word there.

The "style for following paragraph" in the Modify Style dialogues is set to Normal. It is even on the picture above, it's just not very well visible.

Hi mimirom,

I meant via the File Open dialogue - you choose the 'templates' file type and navigate to the folder where Normal.dot(x/m) is stored.

In your pic, I can't see anythong other than a pilcrow (¶) in the area for the following Style type.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Of course, a bunch of Windows Users answering a Mac User question, obviously none of you got it right...

To deactivate Times New Roman as a default fallback font in Mac Office 2011:
Word > Preferences >Edit > Uncheck "Match font with keyboard"

And that's all there is to it.

In the discussion here I've noticed confusion. A Template in Word jargon is a computer file. It is confusing because there is also the normal Style. A style is a collection of formatting characteristics, either applied to a paragraph or a character. Templates hold collections of styles, one of which is the normal style. "Heading 1," "Heading 2," "Heading 3," and "Body Text" are all names of styles.

Many other styles base their formatting on the normal style by default.

In Windows, and I suspect on the Mac, you can open the normal template for editing by using vba, even if you do not know where it is located. Normal Template in Microsoft Word - How to Open. Once you have it open, you can modify the normal style and other styles that are used.

Doing this will change future new blank documents.

If you are using Word more than 6 hours a month you owe it to yourself to learn to use Styles in Word. Within two months you will more than have recovered any time you spend learning them. If you use Word more than that the savings are much more dramatic. See Understanding Styles in Microsoft Word, Tips for Understanding Styles in Word and Yet Another "Use Styles" Verbal Beating!

masterin, as you pointed out, I am not currently using a Mac. I did for many years, but not recently.

However, I suspect that the advice you gave will not allow the user to change the default font to Verdana or Century Schoolbook. The only way I know of to change the default font is to change it in the normal.dot or normal.dotm template. (Of course, you can also change it in different document template and use that template for the new document.)

I would uncheck the box you indicate, though. I suspect it is the equivalent of the the Windows version command to match the keyboard to document's surrounding language. The checked setting for this tends to cause problems, in the Windows version.