Clients have usually started creating their document with a Word version that did not have themes or they have manually applied their institution’s required font, ie Times New Roman or Arial. You therefore need to change the default heading font and body font to match the client or institution’s choice so that your editing changes are not inserted in the current default font, such as Calibri. This formatting tip tells you how to customise a theme font set.
- Put your cursor in a Normal paragraph.
- Go to Home > Fonts to see what font the client has used.
See if there is a manually applied font
- To make the manually applied font the default font or to correct it to comply with a style guide.
___a. Go to Design > Fonts.
Design > Fonts
___b. Scroll down and select the relevant font set, or the closest you can find. They often come in sets of two different fonts because book designers like to have a different font for the heading and body.
Design > Fonts dropdown > Arial-Times New Roman
If you look at Home > Fonts, you will see that the font is now ‘Times New Roman (Body)’.
___c. If the client used a font or requires a combination that is not in the dropdown list (such as Times New Roman for both Heading font and Body font), select Customize Fonts and select the correct fonts.
Create a new theme font set
- Rename the Custom font set so you can easily find it again. It will be in the top section of the dropdown list of font sets. (If you are an academic editor, you will probably often need a ‘Times New Roman-Times New Roman’ font set).
- Save it.
Go to ‘Formatting tips’
Previous – Check page size and margins
Next – Set page numbering
(A very brief version of this information originally appeared in a PEGblog post: Formatting before Editing 1: Introduction)
Published 28 April 2025
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