
Click the down arrow at the right of the style name and choose Modify.Scroll through the list of styles until you can see the Normal style.(Choose Styles and Formatting from the Format menu.) Display the Styles or Styles and Formatting task pane, depending on your version of Word.(The best way to find these is to use the search capabilities in Word.) Locate the file Normal.dot on your hard drive, and then open the file in Word.If Word has already created the default template (again, Normal.dot) then the best way to change the default font is to make your change to the template itself. If you are asked whether you want to change the default font, click Yes.

(This is what updates the information in the Windows Registry.)

The default font used by the program is no exception. In later versions of Word, more and more defaults have been moved away from templates and into the Windows Registry. In Word 97 and Word 2000 all defaults were stored in the default template, which is Normal.dot. Where those defaults come from depends on the version of Word you are using.

When you create a new document, Word bases what that document looks like on certain defaults that it establishes.
