Dave Taylor answers free tech support questions about a wide variety of business and technical topics, including blogging, iphone help, ipod help, AdSense, MySpace, Sony PSP help, Mp3 players, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Linux, SEO, Mac OS X, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Change default font size in WordPad?

How can I change from the default "10" font size in WordPad to any other size like "12"? I have searched and looked and sought this answer to no avail. I use WordPad quite a lot and even when I manually change the font size it invariably switches back to a "10" in the process of writing, etc. So it is a big pain!


Dave's Answer:

Because WordPad uses defaults set by your overall configuration rather than having its own set of defaults, you can't change the default in WordPad permanently unless you're a serious Windows programming wizard. I really don't think you're gonna want to know that much about your system just for a problem with WordPad. Who does?

However, there is a way to solve your problem by changing the way you are doing things. Here's what I noticed that you said:

"I use WordPad quite a lot and even when I manually change the font size it invariably switches back to a "10" in the process of writing, etc."

The fact that it is switching back means only one thing -- that you are not selecting your entire workspace (all text) before changing the font size to 12.

You can solve the problem of the font size changing back to default by first selecting all text. If no text exists yet, select all by double-clicking within your text area. you should see a thick selection bar instead of a cursor (and that bar should not disappear while you are changing the font size). If there is already text there, select all text by pressing Ctrl + A to make sure you get every active part of the document.

WordPad, Windows

Here is a picture of what you should see. As you can seem the selected area should still appear selected while you are changing the font size.

When there is no text selected, the cursor disappears. This means you have not changed the font size on the entire document, and future changes to the location of your cursor in the document will take you to a location where the font size remained set to 10.

When you select all first, your font size should remain at the chosen setting for the entire time that you are working on the file.

WordPad, Windows
 This should work to keep your font size from re-setting while editing your document.
Many thanks to Desi of Words In A Row for help with this question.


Help others find this article at Del.icio.us, Digg, Netscape, Reddit, and Stumble Upon    

Subscribe!

Never miss another useful Q&A article again! Subscribe to AskDaveTaylor with Google Reader.

Comments

Well, I was looking around for a way to change the font WordPad uses for text-only editing (as opposed to format-inclusive editing or whatever you want to call it when you have formatting too). See, I edit HTML documents with WordPad, but I would prefer something like Arial over this Courier stuff, and it's something that I can do in Notepad but haven't seen in WordPad yet. Unfortunately, if there's no way to set a default font, then setting a text-only display font other than Courier is probably impossible too. :(

Posted by: green_meklar at May 30, 2007 12:16 PM

the ruler at the top of my wordpad is really small, when i type a line, it only goes upto no.4 on the ruler, about an inch long. ive tried dragging the pointers across but they stop at 4 too, please help me.

Posted by: kathy at January 29, 2008 11:44 AM


I have a lot to say, but ...
Starbucks coffee cup I have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but most of all I'd like to say thank you for all your efforts on this Web site by buying you a chai!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!









Remember personal info?


Please note that I will never send you any unsolicited commercial email. Ever.

While I'm at it, please note that by submitting a question or comment you're agreeing to my terms of service, which are: you relinquish any subsequent rights of ownership to your material by submitting it on this site.









Uniblue: Free Virus Scan

Search
Find just the answers you seek from among our 1700+ free tech support articles by using our Lijit search engine.


Member of the B5Media Network

Help!





Subscribe to
Ask Dave Taylor!

Add to Google Reader
Add to My Yahoo!
Subscribe in NewsGator Online

RDF   XML

Free Updates!
Sign up and get free weekly updates and special offers on books, seminars, workshops and more.


Recent Entries
Join the List!
Join my author info mailing list, where you'll learn about my upcoming books, speaking gigs, and more!


Book Links
© 2002 - 2008 by Dave Taylor. All Rights Reserved.

Note: This web site is for the purpose of disseminating information for educational purposes, free of charge, for the benefit of all visitors. We take great care to provide quality information. However, we do not guarantee, and accept no legal liability whatsoever arising from or connected to, the accuracy, reliability, currency or completeness of any material contained on this web site or on any linked site.

[whiteboard marker tray]