I'm trying to change the default font settings in Word; however, when I
launched Word again, the default font is still Times New Roman (the original
one). And when I tried to save manually to Normal.dot, Word prompted that it
cannot give the same name as an open document. What's even more curious is
that when I perform a search for files on my hard drive, I was "unable" to
find Normal.dot! How could I be able to change the default font settings?

normal.dot is in a hidden folder, so search won't find it unless you tell it
to look in hidden folders. And similarly you can't browse for it unless you
have set the Explorer folder options to show hidden files and folders
(Explorer: Tools Folder Options). The default location is c:\documents and
settings\[username]\Application data\Microsoft\templates.

You can't save a document or template AS normal.dot because it is indeed
open when Word is running. Once you've solved the search problem you can
open it explicitly, make changes, and save it. But you don't need to do that
to change the default font: modify the definition of your 'normal' style and
check the 'Add to template' checkbox.




"ryanko" wrote in message
...
I'm trying to change the default font settings in Word; however, when I
launched Word again, the default font is still Times New Roman (the
original
one). And when I tried to save manually to Normal.dot, Word prompted that
it
cannot give the same name as an open document. What's even more curious is
that when I perform a search for files on my hard drive, I was "unable" to
find Normal.dot! How could I be able to change the default font settings?

Jezebel has answered most of your questions, but if you're already changing
the default font by changing the font and clicking Default... in the Font
dialog (and it sounds as if you are), and this change is not being saved,
then the problem is obviously that Normal.dot is not being saved. So two
possibilities come to mind:

1. When you quit Word, are you being prompted to save Normal.dot? If so, are
you saying yes?

2. Are you running Adobe Acrobat 7? If so, this prevents Normal.dot from
being saved. Until Adobe corrects this problem, the only alternative (short
of opening Normal.dot, making changes directly, and then saving) is to press
Shift and then select Save All on the File menu, which will force a save of
Normal.dot.

--
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.

"ryanko" wrote in message
...
I'm trying to change the default font settings in Word; however, when I
launched Word again, the default font is still Times New Roman (the
original
one). And when I tried to save manually to Normal.dot, Word prompted that
it
cannot give the same name as an open document. What's even more curious is
that when I perform a search for files on my hard drive, I was "unable" to
find Normal.dot! How could I be able to change the default font settings?