Thursday, September 11, 2014

Changing Calibri...It's Reared Its Head Again

First, let me say that this post is for a special case that power user Ray--a reader of this blog--wrote to me about. Let me start by giving you the background explanation.

Background Explanation

Ray changed Calibri to Garamond inside of MS Word. If Ray opens a document inside of MS Word, he gets Garamond and all is right with the world.

However, shortcut lovin' Ray is opening new MS Word documents from Windows Explorer. When Ray has Windows Explorer open, he is right clicking in a folder, and using pop-up menus to open a new Word document.

Click the graphic to open a larger view.
Press the ESC key to return here.

When you open a new document using this method, it appears that Word opens the Normal/Blank Document template with the Office theme applied...ignoring your font change inside of Word; that is, you get Calibri font...Again!

So how you open a new document matters because of the apparent automatic application of the Office theme.

Workaround

I'm a never say die type of gal. So, after thinking about it a minute, there is a workaround. 
  1. Use Ray's shortcut to open a Word document.
  2. Click the Page Layout tab. 
  3. Locate the Themes group, and click the drop-down arrow beside the Fonts button. A list of fort themes opens.
  4. Select a font theme--in Ray's case Black Tie (Garamond). Word updates all of the styles in the new document to garamond or whatever font combination you selected. 

Since this will be a routine task for Ray, he should add the Theme button to his Quick Access toolbar. 
  1. Right click in the Themes group to display a pop-up menu.
  2. Click Add to Quick Access Toolbar. Word adds the Themes button to the toolbar at the top of the screen. 
  3. To use the button, Ray has to open a document, click the button in the Quick Access toolbar, select the Font button, and then select a font combination.

Followup

I'm continuing to read to see if there's a way to change the Office theme to force the font change. A quick look online provided no answer. 

3 comments:

  1. I have successfully changed my default font in MS Word 2010. In Word from the home section in the ribbon, click on the lower right corner of the font section to bring up the font screen. Change the existing font to the font of choice and then when asked be sure to acknowledge that you want to change the normal template to the new font. I have done this and no matter how I begin a new document, it keeps the new font. Hope this helps Ray.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Darn...I forgot to click Reply again. Thanks Ray...please see my reply below.

      Delete
  2. Hey Ray--Thanks for the update. My changes hold. But for anyone who is having problems, you've certainly provided an excellent suggestion. Thank you! It just goes to show that if there's one way to do something in Word, there are at least two other ways to do the same task.

    ReplyDelete