Changing the font in WordPad

[BobLondonKy]

Hi,

Can someone please tell me how to change the font in WordPad. I
already know how to change it when I am creating something. I'd like
to change it to Times New Roman as the startup font. Right now when
it starts it uses Arial 10 Western. I'd like it to start with Times
New Roman. Is this possible? How can I do it?

Thanks for any and all responses.

Bob,
London, Kentucky

 

[Harry Ohrn MS MVP]

Hi,

Can someone please tell me how to change the font in WordPad. I
already know how to change it when I am creating something. I'd like
to change it to Times New Roman as the startup font. Right now when
it starts it uses Arial 10 Western. I'd like it to start with Times
New Roman. Is this possible? How can I do it?

Thanks for any and all responses.

Bob,
London, Kentucky

Because of it's default settings unfortunately there is no easy fix for
this. However you might want to take a look at an alternative wordprocessor.
This is cheap
http://www.brothersoft.com/business/word_processing/notepro_14883.html But
if you need something free check here http://www.jarte.com/ or if you want
something nearly as powerful as Microsoft Office this is an excellent choice
http://www.openoffice.org/index.html but be aware that it is a very large
download. Open Office can be configured to open/create/save files as MS Word
documents

 

[Larry Gardner]

Found this on the web ... kind of kludgey ... put it works:

Start WordPad the Way You Want
Every time I start my WordPad program, it uses the default font setting of
point size 10 and I have to change it manually to the size I prefer. How can
I change the default font size, style, and other properties?

Sam Cimino, Merrillville, Indiana

The short answer is, you can't. But you can work around this limitation
fairly easily. Start WordPad, and if you have any boilerplate information,
such as a logo or a letterhead graphic, type or paste that into a new
document. Move the cursor to where you want to start typing your text, and
type a space. Select the space you just typed, and apply the desired
typeface, size, alignment, and other settings (see Figure 3).

Now choose File, Save As, select a location that is unlikely to be moved or
deleted, and give the file a name such as Template. Click Save. Now choose
File, Save As again, but this time right-click the file you just saved in
the dialog box, and select Properties. Check the Read-only box and click OK.
This will protect the file from accidental changes. Click Cancel in the Save
As dialog box.

Right-click the Start button and choose Open. Navigate to the shortcut that
you use to launch WordPad, right-click it, and choose Properties. Select the
Shortcut tab, click the Target box, and press End to make sure the cursor is
at the end of the command line. Type a space, followed by the path to your
template file. If the path contains any spaces or long file names, enclose
the entire path in quotation marks. If the program (Wordpad.exe) is already
enclosed in quotation marks, you'll end up with two sets of quotation marks.
For example, your final Target command line might read "C:\Program
Files\Accessories\wordpad.exe" "C:\My Documents\Template.doc" (your path may
differ). Then click OK.

The next time you launch WordPad, it should open your template with the font
you prefer. Because you made the file read-only, you won't have to worry
about overwriting the template. If you choose File, Save instead of File,
Save As, WordPad will still open the Save As dialog box, prompting you to
save the file with a new file name each time you start a new document. You
can extend this tip to create multiple WordPad shortcuts, each opening a
template for a different purpose.

 

[rustyfender04]

Learn something new every day. : -)

I don't suppose this would work as long as a person had Wordpad files
associated with MS Word?

 

[Larry Gardner]

If you have Wordpad files associated with MS Word, that is a different
story. In that case, you can force what Font can be used when creating a
new document.

This is based on Word 2002 (Word XP), but it may be the same for Word 2000
and up.

1. Open MS Word
2. Click on menu command Format | Font
3. From the Font Tab, Change Font to what you want
4. Click on Default left bottom of page (maybe someplace else on the tab
page) ... you should get a prompt that states:

Do you want to change the default font (Default) NEW FONT YOU SELECTED?
This will affect all new documents based on the NORMAL template.

5. Click on Yes
6. Close MS Word

You will be prompted:

Do you want to save changes to Document1

7. Click No ... you still have modified the Normal Template

Now whenever you create a new document, the default font is whatever you
selected.

You can also modify the Font for existing files when the style comes up as
Plain Text - Courier New.

 

[Alan Edwards]

??? Am I missing something here?

If you associate Wordpad files with MS Word then they are no longer
Wordpad files as they are now MS Word files.

....Alan

 

[Larry Gardner]

I assumed that, based on previous posts, that they had a question about when
they assocaiated Wordpad files to be opened by MS Word as the default.

There really is no known Wordpad extension ... so with Wordpad ... you can
set it up to be the default editor on nearly anything. Does not mean you
can view it correctly, but you can set it as the Default Editor.

So, if you associated .txt files to MS Word ... when you open them, the
default editor would be MS Word.
In that case, you may want to change the default font to something else.
HOWEVER, when you save the doument ... it will save it as a .doc file or
drop all the formatting you added.