New Outlook for Windows – Installed font (Arial Narrow) not available in font picker

Question

Hi Microsoft Support Team,

We are experiencing an issue in New Outlook for Windows where an installed system font is not available for selection.

Issue

Font: Arial Narrow

• Status: The font is installed on Windows and appears under Windows Settings > Personalisation > Fonts.

The font is selectable and works correctly in Microsoft Word and Classic Outlook on the same PC.

However, New Outlook does not list Arial Narrow in the font selector (Compose and reply), and it cannot be chosen as a default font.

What we’ve tried

Verified font is installed and visible in Windows Fonts settings.

Confirmed it works in other Office apps (Word, Classic Outlook).

Restarted New Outlook and the PC.

Request: Could you please confirm:

Whether New Outlook for Windows intentionally restricts the font list to a limited set (web-safe/curated fonts), even when fonts are installed locally.

1. If there is a supported way (policy, registry, tenant setting, or configuration) to allow installed Windows fonts, such as Arial Narrow, to appear in New Outlook’s font picker.
2. Any recommended workaround or roadmap update if this is a known limitation/bug?

If you need additional information, we can provide:

Windows version/build

New Outlook version/build

M365 tenant type/licensing

Screenshots showing font present in Windows/Word/Classic Outlook but missing in New Outlook

Kind regards,

Confidence level: 0.76 (High that this email contains the right diagnostic framing and asks the right questions; medium on the exact root cause until Microsoft confirms behaviour for your New Outlook build/tenant.)

Answer 1

Dear @Oscar Vicencio,

Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Q&A forum.

I truly appreciate your detailed explanation and for the troubleshooting you’ve already completed.

In this situation, what you’re experiencing with Arial Narrow is expected behavior in New Outlook for Windows. Although the font is correctly installed on Windows and works in applications like Microsoft Word and Classic Outlook, New Outlook uses a web‑based rendering engine (similar to Outlook on the web). Because of this, it only supports a limited, curated list of fonts and does not display all locally installed Windows fonts in the Compose/Reply font picker.

In the meantime, if using Arial Narrow is a requirement, I recommend continuing to use Classic Outlook for Windows, which fully supports locally installed fonts.

I understand how limiting this can be, particularly for organizations that rely on specific fonts for branding or readability. Unfortunately, there is currently no supported policy, registry, or tenant‑level setting to extend the font list in New Outlook.

Therefore, your feedback is exactly what helps shape future improvements, and I strongly encourage you to submit feedback directly to the product team, so they understand the real‑world impact of this limitation. I highly recommend you submit your feedback directly to Microsoft Ideas · Community, where our product development team can know your requirements and ideas for product improvements. The more customers who raise this request, the higher the visibility it gets internally. I fully support your feedback and appreciate you taking the time to call out how important this feature would be.

Note: As Microsoft Community moderators, please note that we are not involved in product design decisions and do not have direct access to the development roadmap, we want to assure you that your feedback has been acknowledged and is valued.  

I hope this information is helpful. Thank you for sharing your experience, and I truly appreciate your patience.

---

If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".   

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

Answer 2

New Outlook for Windows currently uses a curated, cloud-aware font experience and does not expose all locally installed Windows fonts in its font picker the same way Classic Outlook and Word do.

From the available documentation:

1. New Outlook and the modern font picker
   • Office apps are moving to a modern font picker, which:
     • Supports cloud fonts and a curated set of Office fonts.
     • Distinguishes between fonts that are available to all users vs. premium or cloud-only fonts.
     • Shows only the fonts that are considered available and supported in that environment, not necessarily every font installed in Windows.
   • The modern font picker also has logic for missing fonts and replacement fonts, which indicates that the font list is managed rather than being a raw enumeration of all system fonts.
2. Arial Narrow availability
   • Arial Narrow is documented as an Office font supplied within Office applications, not as a generic Windows system font.
   • It is therefore expected to be available in Office apps that fully surface Office fonts (for example, Word and Classic Outlook).
   • The fact that it appears and works in Word and Classic Outlook but not in New Outlook is consistent with New Outlook using a more restricted/curated font set.
3. Policy/registry/tenant controls
   • The provided documentation and Q&A do not describe any policy, registry key, or tenant configuration that forces New Outlook to expose all locally installed Windows fonts in the font picker.
   • There is no documented mechanism in this context to add specific fonts (such as Arial Narrow) to the New Outlook font list.
4. Workarounds and roadmap
   • No official workaround is documented here for making Arial Narrow appear in New Outlook’s font picker.
   • The context does not include any roadmap or bug note specifically about Arial Narrow or about expanding New Outlook’s font list to all installed fonts.
   • If a document that uses a font not available in the current environment is opened in an Office app with the modern font picker, the app will:
     • Mark that font as missing and
     • Substitute a replacement font for viewing without changing the underlying font in the document. This behavior is documented generally for modern font picker but not specifically for New Outlook’s compose editor.
5. Practical guidance based on the available information
   • Treat this as a current limitation of New Outlook’s font picker rather than a configuration issue, given that:
     • Arial Narrow is confirmed as an Office font and works in Word and Classic Outlook.
     • No configuration mechanism is documented to extend New Outlook’s font list to all installed fonts.
   • For scenarios where Arial Narrow is required and must be selectable:
     • Use Classic Outlook for composing messages that must use Arial Narrow.
     • Or compose in Word using Arial Narrow and then send via Classic Outlook (New Outlook is not MAPI-compliant and cannot be used for certain integration scenarios, which further reinforces that Classic Outlook remains the fully featured mail client for advanced formatting and integration).

For confirmation, escalation, or roadmap details beyond what is documented, open a support ticket with Microsoft and reference that Arial Narrow is an Office-supplied font that is missing from New Outlook’s font picker while present in Word and Classic Outlook.

---

References:

• Arial Narrow font family
• Use the modern font picker in Office
• Office 365 apps insist on using Outlook Classic to share documents to email - Microsoft Q&A