You do NOT have to open Normal.dot to do this. See
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customizat...alTemplate.htm

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"Kim" wrote in message
...
You have to change it in your Normal.dot. Find where Normal.dot is stored
on
your computer. Open it, make whatever changes, font style, margins etc.
Press Save. Next time you go into Word you should see your changes. A
quick
way to find your Normal.dot is to click on TOOLS, OPTIONS, FILE LOCATIONS,
see where it says USER TEMPLATE? That's your Normal.dot. See where it
says
it's located. Probably in C:\documents and settings\username\application
data\microsoft\templates.

Hope this helps.

"AmyP" wrote:

How do you change the default font so that each time Word is accessed
the
preferred is used, i.e. Ariel or Comic Sans?
--
Thank you,
AmyP