How To Set Your Default Font in Outlook

Outlook
If you find yourself wanting to change the default font for your Microsoft Outlook emails or perhaps want to unify the style as a part of a broader branding effort, there is a quick way to do it.

Set the default font for New and Reply emails

Lest start with the setup of the font on the body of new and reply emails.

  • Go to File > Options (or right click the Mail icon and choose Options)
  • Click Mail > Stationery and Fonts
Go to Options > Mail > Stationery and Fonts
Go to Options > Mail > Stationery and Fonts

To keep an unified set of fonts for of all the emails we send, we need to follow these next steps three times, one for the New mail messages (1) we’ll send, one for the Replies and Forwarding (2) and once more the emails in Plain Text (3), this last one is used rarely, but if we want all the emails on the same font, it needs to be set up.

Choose your for New messages, Replies, and for Pain Text emails.
Choose your for New messages, Replies, and for Pain Text emails

We click on the Font button under each of the emails we’re setting up to open the Font and size selection menu:

Set your desired Font, Size and other styles.
Set your desired Font, Size and other styles

Once here, we only need to navigate to the chosen Font and size, select them and press Ok.

Then we just need to repeat the process for the other types of emails, points 2 and 3 of the previous picture.

Change the font for my next email only

If you only want to change the font as a one-off, we go to New email and set it there.

Pop-out the new email into a new window to create the message, go to the Format Text tab, and make sure that the cursor is in the body of the email you’re writing.

Choose your desired Font and Size.

Pop-out the message and go to Format Text
Pop-out the message and go to Format Text

Additionally, we can choose how to align the text or the justification.

If we want to change the format for our reply, instead of New Email, we Press Reply, and Pop Out the message. (If the email you are replying to is in Plain Text, you’ll also reply in Plain Text, so here you can also revert back to HTML).

Then we just follow the same steps of going to the Format Text Tab and choosing the desired Font and size.

Change the font and size for the Message Preview

The message preview is the middle pane in Outlook, and we can personalise it too.

You can change the style of the Folder, Preview and Reading panes.
You can change the style of the Folder, Preview and Reading panes

To change how the middle pane displays the information, go to the View tab in Outlook, then View Settings.

Go to View > View Settings
Go to View > View Settings

Select Other Settings

Select Other Settings
Select Other Settings

Option 1 changes how Outlook displays the name of the sender and the preview of the text in the preview pane.

Option 2 changes the subject of the email in the preview.

Option 3 applies to the reading pane.

Choose your preferred style for the different panes
Choose your preferred style for the different panes
Preview and adjust
Preview and adjust

See some of out other useful tips for Outlook here.

Further reading

Passkeys Vs Passwords 2 med

Leave Passwords in the Past: Why the NCSC Is Backing Passkeys for Login Security

The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has delivered a clear new message: “Leave passwords in the past – passkeys are the future.” In April 2026, the NCSC formally updated its guidance to recommend using passkeys as the default way to log in wherever services support them, instead of traditional passwords (even those paired with multi-factor authentication). This is a major shift in cyber security advice, and overturns decades of password-centric best practices.

Read More »