How to change default Font size, color and style in Outlook

As a Microsoft Outlook user, you don’t have to stick with Office’s default set of Fonts in your emails or messages. It’s a snap to ‘change default font’ of individual messages in Outlook. Here’s a short tutorial explaining how to customize or change the default font color, style, and size in Microsoft Outlook.

Most Windows applications offers customization options. They let a user arrange components to suit their requirements and preferences. So, flexibility is another point that merits consideration. Microsoft Outlook application is a right and balanced mixture of the two, as it even allows you to change default font size, type & color.

Before we proceed any further, it is important to mention here that for recipients to view the message in the same font as it appears on your computer screen, they should have the same font installed on their computer. If the font that you have used isn’t installed on the recipient’s computer, then, it is likely that the recipient’s mail program substitutes an available font.

Change default Font size, color and style in Outlook

In Outlook, you can enlarge the default font to reduce chronic eye pain or resize it to a smaller to fit more things in a single window. Most Microsoft apps are customizable to users’ liking and Outlook is no exception to this rule. The personal information manager from Microsoft is set to Calibri (11 Pt) as the default Font and size.

Customizing the font and the font size in Outlook can be done in a few simple steps. If you have Microsoft Outlook installed on your PC launch it.

When launched, click on the ‘File’ tab visible under the Ribbon menu and scroll down to locate ‘Options’

When found, click it.

Now, when the Outlook Options window opens, choose ‘Mail’ category and hit the ‘Stationery and Fonts’ tab as shown in the image above.

Here, in the new ‘Signatures and Stationery’ window that opens up, you can configure the fonts, styles, colors, backgrounds section, effects and more.

Click Font under New mail messages and select the desired font, style, size, color, and any embellishments. I have chosen Times New Roman as the desired font but you can change it to the one that better suits you.

When done, hit the ‘OK’ button.

In the Signatures and Stationery window, you did it for New mail messages. Likewise, do the same for-

• Replying or forwarding messages
• Composing and reading plain text messages.

To change the default font style for messages that you reply to or forward, do the following:

Click the File tab, choose Options. Then, select Mail.

Next, under Compose messages, click Stationery and Fonts. On the Personal Stationery tab, under Replying or forwarding messages, click Font.

Here, you will find the options to change the font options to one of your choices for future messages.

When done, click OK on the Font, the Signatures and Stationery, and the Outlook Options dialog boxes.

That’s it!

Outlook font changed by itself

If you find that the font in Outlook has changed by itself, you can reset it back to default by following the procedure laid down in this post. You will find the option under Mail Settings.

Can you change the default font size in Outlook?

To change the default font size in Outlook, you need to follow the aforementioned steps in detail. First, open the Outlook Options panel and switch to the Mail tab. Then, find the Compose messages section and click on the Stationary and Fonts button. Next, you can find four options – Theme or stationary for new HTML e-mail messages,  New mail messages, Replying or forwarding messages, and Composing and reading plain text messages. You need to choose what you want to tweak and click on the respective Font button. Then, you can choose a font and size as per your requirements.

What is the default font type of Outlook?

By default, Outlook uses Calibri font at 11-point. However, if you want to change the font in Outlook, you can follow the detailed steps mentioned above. These steps are almost the same for the older version and the Microsoft 365 version of Outlook. No matter whether you use it on Windows 11, Windows 10, or any other older version, you can follow the same steps.

Read next: How to view and read all standard mail in plain text in Outlook.

How to change the default font in Word, Excel or PowerPoint?

To change the default font in Word, Excel or PowerPoint, launch the Office application click ‘Home’ tab, and then click the Dialog Box Launcher arrow in the Font group. Here, click the font you want to use then, under ‘Size’, click the size you want to use for body text.