Default font is not what i selected, cant get it to change back.

MellieD · 18 Dec 2012

Hey all,

I am new to the forums so please forgive me if I have posted this in the wrong place.

My co-worker has been having an issue for the last 3 weeks or so. He says every time he opens Word or Outlook, it's in a strange font similar to Britannic Bold, not the original times new roman, he had set as default. He says it only happens in those 2 programs.

With Word, it happens when he opens a new blank document, but does not effect any previously created documents. Oddly enough, even the "styles" have been changed into this font.
With Outlook, it changes most (but not all) new incoming messages to be typed out in said format. However it does not appear to be effecting any old messages.

I have tried a reboot x2, as well as setting the default font both in word directly, and on the windows system, via the control panel and fonts. Neither of these had any effects.

Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated. Thank you :)

Neutron16 · 18 Dec 2012

Hello MellieD,

Deleting of Normal.dot* file should help in this case. Because after you delete such file, Word will recreate a default one. (Backup the old one, just in case).
(Some versions of Outlook partially use Word's code and files).

But because you did not specified versions of your software and operation system I can only refer you to this article, which explaines what is NORMAL template and where to find it in different versions of Office.
Word Articles: Word's Normal Template

If you would like more specific help, please provide us with software versions.

MellieD · 18 Dec 2012

Hey Neutron16

I apologize for forgetting such basic info... like I said... I'm really new at most of this.
My co-workers OS is... Windows 7 Professional Version 6.1, same as mine, but he is running off an HP Elite Book laptop.

Please let me know if you need any further info, i would be more than happy to provide.

Neutron16 · 18 Dec 2012

Thank you for info. I was more curios about Office version, but let's assume that we are talking about Office 2007 or Office 2010 English version. If those are work computers, I hope that Admin didn't change templates folder for Office.

So, here are the steps I would do:

1) Exit Word and Outlook
2) Copy & Paste the following line into search bar of Start menu (or address bar of Explorer) and press Enter

Code:

%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Templates

3) In that folder find files like Normal.dotm and NormalEmail.dotm
4) Copy them to another folder like Documents for backup purposes
5) Delete originals in that Templates folder.

Now Word will recreate those files on next start.

MellieD · 18 Dec 2012

Wonderful! Thanks for the help! I'll give this a try as soon as his computer is freed up and I'll post back to let you know if it works.

Thanks again Neutron16, I appreciate the help.

MellieD · 19 Dec 2012

**UPDATE**

I finally had the chance to try the fix, and it did not solve the issue. What other details should i provided to find another possible solution? Is there another possible solution? Thanks for all the help.

Neutron16 · 19 Dec 2012

The issue has to be with templates. May be we are looking at a wrong file.

What is Office version on that computer?
Please create and post a screenshot of that template folder using this tutorial.

MellieD · 20 Dec 2012

Thank you for the continued assistance Neutron16, I will post the screen shots and version as soon as I have them available.

MellieD · 31 Dec 2012

I am going to mark this as solved... not because the problem is fixed, but because i can not get to the computer in question to continue troubleshooting. I will open a new case when i am given the time/ access to obtain the information necessary. Thank you so much Neutron16 for the help you provided.