Note that you can also do this as follows:

1. Open a new document.
2. Go to the Format menu and select Font.
3. Change the font to Times New Roman.
4. Click the "Default" button at the bottom.

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This way is better to use because I believe it affects all styles, not just the Normal style.

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-Ben ;)

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It looks like these hints date back to the last century ;-)

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For some unknown reason that also appears to have been Crack inspired at M$ Department of Willy-Nilly Changes, they decided to set the spacing After a paragraph to 10 by default. This makes it look as though you have pressed Carriage Return TWICE after a paragraph.

To remedy this, do the following:

1) Open Word
2) Go to menu Format > Styles...
3) Highlight "Normal" in the styles selection window, then press "Modify"
4) In the Window that opens, choose "Paragraph" from a tiny pop-up menu in the lower left corner
5) Change the "After" setting to 0
6) Press "OK" twice to close windows, then Press "Apply" in the main "Style" window
7) Quit Word and re-open. Default Paragraph style of After should now be 0.

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In point 6, remember to also check the "Add to template" checkbox before clicking Apply in the "Modify Style" dialog.

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Thanks for both hints. Worked like a charm. :D

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Two things in this world aren't overrated: Macintosh and Lemon Meringue Pie.

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Great, now could someone post how to do this in Pages.app?

Every dang element in a Pages.app document seems to have its own font. There is no "Default Font".

Well, that's not true, the default font is Helvetica, which is great if you're one of the "Helvetica Is The Best Font Ever" camp, but for the rest of us, it's a giant PITA.




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I think that the only way to do this is to save a new template. Like for me, I have to write all of my papers for school in times new roman font, so I loaded up the research paper template, changed all of the fonts to times new roman, and chose File>Save as Template. Now when I start Pages, it's under the My Templates section on the template chooser.

I still think iWork should have a default font option.

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I've just deleted Times New Roman (TNR) because it was playing havoc with Safari pages, even eBay listings. Anywhere that a web page had TNR as default font, the text appeared in Arabic.

Once I removed the TNR font from my Fonts folder, normal service resumed.

Anyway, TNR is a crappy font -- I converted my daughter's disertation to Minion Pro and none of the lecturers/examiners commented on the change, and she still passed with First Class Honours!!

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This is not the correct way to change the default font. By this method the normal.dotm will be disconnected from document themes. What you need to do is change the default Font Set in the normal.dotm. This is much easier to do in Word 2007 (Windows), but can be done with a few extra steps for Word 2008.

1. Open the normal.dotm: File > Open > Enable: Word Templates, then navigate to Office > User Templates and select Normal.dotm > Open

2. On the Formatting Palette (View menu > Toolbox: Formatting Palette), Open Document Theme

3. Select a pair of fonts (Headings and Body) for Fonts. The default fonts from Word 2004 and earlier are in the Font Set Office Classic.

4. While you're at it, you can choose a different theme Color Set and fix any settings to the Normal Style (like the space after paragraph mentioned above).

5. Save the template. Now when you open a New Blank Document based on the normal template, these settings will be in play. Also, because you changed the Font Set instead of selecting a specific font, the Document Themes will still be able to update the document fonts.

One problem with keeping the new fonts (Cambria and Calibri) as the default is that users who have not installed the new version of Office will not have these fonts, so even if you give them a version of your file they can open, the fonts will be substituted. Embedding the fonts when you save the file or saving the file as a PDF will maintain the fonts you use, but are not good solutions for collaborating on a document with other users.

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