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Word constantly changes to Times New Roman on every input I make. Why?

Anonymous
2019-02-02T00:12:02+00:00

This has been annoying me so much.

I recently started subscribing to Office365 and using Word. But whenever I type, the font immediately changes to Times New Roman.

I can change the style to Normal style, Headings or any font and upon pressing any key, be it spacebar or a letter, the font changes to Times New Roman. The font size is kept, but the font is changed.  Pressing Ctrl + Space does revert the text back to the normal style, but upon any more input it once again changes to Times New Roman.

I have tried lots of different things, but none of the below fixes have worked:

  • Restarting PC
  • Repairing Office (Both quick and slow)
  • Reinstalling Office completely
  • Clearing all settings and registry of Word
  • Deleting the "Normal.dotm" file
  • Replacing the "Normal.dotm" file with a file from another PC with working Word
  • Setting that replaced file to "Read Only" to prevent it being overwritten
  • Setting other default fonts
  • Changing the style settings for Normal
  • Using other templates
  • Removing all printers from the "Printers & Scanners" settings
  • Re-connecting to one of said printers
  • Change Word language to "English (United Kingdom)" instead of "System Default"
  • Changing the default style and using other styles

The ONLY thing that seems to work is that if I create a new user and switch to that, it works fine. Why? What could be causing this? It seems really strange. I would appreciate if I don't have to reinstall my user just to avoid having to change the font constantly during writing.

Does anyone have a guess what could be causing this?

I should add that I changed my system language from the default to English a while back when that became an option. I am from Sweden but don't really like my devices to be in Swedish. I currently only have English (Swedish) installed as a language. (English with a Swedish keyboard layout, I believe). Word is set to use the system language now.

This gif shows the font changing on any input. I change the font back by pressing CTRL + Space, but the same happens on pressing the Normal style or any other style, aswell as changing the font myself.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2019-02-27T11:47:31+00:00

    I got to solve the problem by changing my *system's language* settings.

    1. I made sure that my system's default language (English) and my default language in the 'Language' section of Office Word settings were equal,
    2. I removed any other language from the system setup and finally
    3. I added my input method (Spanish) as an option *inside* my system's default language (English).

    Before that (and I think this somehow caused the problem) the Spanish input method was linked to the whole Spanish language pack that I had as a secondary language in my settings. I wonder if you might have the same sort of mixed display/input language configuration.

    3 people found this answer helpful.
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  2. Stefan Blom 338.9K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2019-02-18T14:33:15+00:00

    Although it should make no difference for the default font, my experience tells me that the language settings in Office become more predictable if I keep the display language in Windows 10 identical to the default proofing language in Office.

    For me, that means making use of the Swedish interface in Windows 10 and setting Swedish as the default proofing language in Office.

    After having done that, I can switch the user interface language in Office (to English, in my case). In addition, I am able to apply different proofing languages to text ranges, if necessary.

    Since you have experimented with deleting or renaming Normal.dotm, see if your User Templates folder also contains files called PreNormal, NormalPre or Normal1 etc. Delete those files and try renaming Normal.dotm again. Does that let you specify the desired font as the default?

    Of course, you should note that setting the default font, in a document based on the Normal template, will apply the new settings to future documents based on the Normal template. Existing documents must be dealt with one by one.

    2 people found this answer helpful.
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  3. Stefan Blom 338.9K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2019-02-18T14:07:22+00:00

    Note that there is a potential issue with replacing the Normal template, in particular if you replace it with any macro-enabled template that has been renamed to "Normal."

    As long as the replacement is a Normal.dotm template created by Word, it is OK. Of course, you will lose any customizations that are not present in the replacement version.

    1 person found this answer helpful.
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  4. Charles Kenyon 166.6K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2019-02-17T23:06:46+00:00

    I think I have solved the problem; I copied the normal.dotm from 1 of the other accounts on my laptop and replaced the ones in my profile with these. It looks like the issue is gone. 

    Glad it worked for you. Probably not the best idea, though.

    It is better to simply rename the existing normal.dotm and let Word replace it, at least as a diagnostic step.

    1 person found this answer helpful.
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  5. Jay Freedman 207.5K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2019-02-02T00:58:07+00:00

    Go to Charles Kenyon's page at http://addbalance.com/word/defaultfont.htm#Word2007 and scroll down a bit to the heading "What if it doesn't work". Read from there to the end of the page for instructions on using the Manage Styles dialog and its Set Defaults tab.

    If you want a specific font, rather than whatever is set by the Themes feature, make sure that the font settings in the definition of the Normal style are the same as those in Manage Styles > Set Defaults.

    1 person found this answer helpful.
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