Microsoft Office for Mac is a suite of applications that includes Word for creating text documents and Excel for making spreadsheets. If you don’t want to use the default font in Office each time you create a new document, you can designate the font of your choice by changing the preferences settings. You have to quit Excel and Word and restart the applications before the new default font settings will take effect for future documents that you create.
Word
1.
Launch Microsoft Word and open a new blank document.
2.
Click “Font” on the Format menu and then click the “Font” tab.
3.
Click the Font pull-down menu and select the name of the font you want to set as the new default.
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5.
Quit Word and then relaunch the application. New documents that you create will use the font you selected.
Excel
1.
Launch Microsoft Excel on your Mac and open a new blank document.
2.
Click the “Excel” menu and then click “Preferences.”
3.
Select the 'General' preferences in the Authoring section. Click the “Standard Font” drop-down menu and click the name of the font you want to set for the default. Click 'OK.'
4.
Quit Excel and then relaunch the application. New spreadsheets that you create will now use the default font you selected.
Warning
Information in this article applies to Microsoft Office version 2011 running on Macs with the OS X 10.8 operating system. It may vary slightly or significantly with other versions or products.
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About the Author
Julius Vandersteen has been a freelance writer since 1999. His work has appeared in “The Los Angeles Times,” “Wired” and “S.F. Weekly.” Vandersteen has a Bachelor of Arts in journalism from San Francisco State University.
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Vandersteen, Julius. 'How to Change the Default Font on Microsoft Office for a Mac.' Small Business - Chron.com, http://smallbusiness.chron.com/change-default-font-microsoft-office-mac-63818.html. Accessed 16 December 2019.
Vandersteen, Julius. (n.d.). How to Change the Default Font on Microsoft Office for a Mac. Small Business - Chron.com. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/change-default-font-microsoft-office-mac-63818.html
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For the last 12 months, Microsoft has focused on getting its flagship Office suite on screens where it's never been before—iPhones, iPads, and Android tablets. The Office for OS X apps were left behind, though. Microsoft released a new version of Outlook and an official OneNote client, but the core Word, Excel, and PowerPoint apps were stuck back in 2010.
That changes today. Microsoft has just released a preview of Office 2016 for Mac, a suite which will include the current versions of Outlook and OneNote alongside newly updated versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. The preview runs on OS X Yosemite, it's free to use, and it includes a tool for providing feedback to Microsoft. Once the final versions of the apps ship 'in the second half of 2015,' users with Office 365 subscriptions will get the new apps immediately. There may be some kind of standalone version available for those who want it, but Microsoft hasn't said.
The new apps take the styling introduced in OneNote and Outlook for OS X and apply it to the other apps in the suite. The ribbon interface now more closely resembles the one in Office 2013 for Windows—Office for Mac 2011 was closer to its Windows counterpart than older versions, but it still looked like a product from another company. The apps integrate much better with OneDrive than the previous versions did, and they support the standard collaborative editing features present on other platforms. All apps also play nice with OS X-specific features, including Full Screen mode, sandboxes for apps, and Retina display support.
Interested users can download the beta here, and it can be installed alongside Office 2011 if you're not comfortable doing all your work in beta software. Microsoft's auto-updater will patch the apps as new versions are available. Microsoft says that each build will expire after 60 days, so don't expect free software in perpetuity.