Change Default Font in Writer

lbrucegray · May 30, 2021, 2:08pm

Hi!

This forum has been very helpful twice before - let’s hope the third time is also the charm!

Every time I open Libre Office Writer, it starts me out in Liberation Serif.

To be honest, I’m getting a little tired of changing it every time?

Can I change the default font permanently, and, if so, how?

Thanks!

gabix · May 30, 2021, 2:28pm

This isn’t a forum. This is a questions and answers site.
Search the site, this question has been covered many times.

anon73440385 · May 30, 2021, 2:38pm

Hello,

yes, there are methods:

Method 1 - New default template:

Open LibreOffice
Start a new Writer document
Open Styles Manager via menu View -> Styles (or F11)
Click icon leftmost (showing Paragraph Styles when hoovered over)
Right click -> Modify -> Tab: Font on Default Paragraph Style
Make your changes and click button OK
File -> Templates -> Save As Template
Select a Template Name (e.g.- MyWriterDefault)
Select a Template Category (e.g.- My Templates)
Important Click option [x] Set as default template
Click button Save
File -> Close (no need to Save)
Open a new document and check, whether new settings opens with desired font settings.

Method 2 - Change font settings

Open LibreOffice
Start a new Writer document
Tools - Options -> LibreOffice Writer -> Basic Fonts (Western)
Change the fonts to your preferred values
Click button Apply
Close the document (no need to save)
Open a new document an check, whether new setting get applied

Hope that helps.

twoputt · September 1, 2022, 10:27pm

LibreOffice 7.4.0 This solution does NOT change the font for most of the character style options such as: caption characters, definitions, drop caps, etc.
I followed the instructions (both method 1 and method 2) to change default font to: Tahoma, Although the paragraph styles were correctly changed, the character styles were not.
Any way other than changing them one-by-one?

ajlittoz · September 2, 2022, 6:42am

This is by design. Character styles are supposed to provided “marginal” changes over properties defined by paragraph styles.

Built-in character styles, except Source Text, Teletype and User Entry, don’t change font face. Only customised or user character styles change font face. So, you should know which one to fix.

I hope you don’t confuse character styles with direct formatting. If you applied your font changes with direct formatting, welcome in formatting hell. There is no other solution than manually chasing the formatting. Or, you select all the text and Ctrl+M to clear direct formatting and you then apply character styles to restore your formatting.

Note that with a well designed style set, you only have a handful of character styles (say ~10) which is easily manageable.