OneNote 2013: Font changes when pressing Enter / Return key

Ok, so this same issue existed in 2010. If I have started a new page when the default font was set to Calibri, every time I hit the enter key to start a new paragraph the font changes back to Calibri. This occurs even through the default font has been changed to Arial.

Is there still no way to stop this? A way to change the default font for a page without have to create a new page and reenter all of the data?

Copying to a new page does not work either as it maintains the formatting from the origianal page.

July 24th, 2013 11:27am

Hi,

I haven't noticed such behavior that font changes when hit the enter key, could you provide more detail information about how to reproduce this behavior? Such as the detail steps, the input method, etc.

Even though, consider the following methods to avoid reentering the data:

  • Select all the text content in the page (by press Ctrl + A), and change the font for them;
  • When paste the text content, choose Keep Text Only from Paste Options, this will let the text content use the new font of the new page.
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July 25th, 2013 4:33am

Hi,

Just checking to see how is everything going on?

July 29th, 2013 5:50am

Hi,

I've marked the reply as answer as there has been no update for a couple of days. Please let us know if you would like further assistance.

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July 30th, 2013 3:04am

Sorry for the delay in replying. Traveling with little access to internet.

Your suggestion is not a solution. To re-produce the behavior:

  1. Start a new page.
  2. Enter a some text.
  3. Press enter to start a new paragraph and enter more text.
  4. Note the Font that is being used.
  5. Now go into OneNote Options and change the default font to something else.
  6. Go back to the page you were working on. From the last paragraph you were working on press enter to start a new paragraph.
  7. The font on this page will still be the original default, this is expected. Change it to match the new default font.
  8. Enter some text. It will have the new font.
  9. Now press enter. Note that it switches back to the original font. So you have to change the font every time you press enter to start a new paragraph.

Your suggested solution only works for existing text. The first time you press enter in the text object it reverts back to the original default font.

If I select the frame of the text object itself, not just highlighting the text, then it would be reasonable to think that changing the font should then set the default for that object to the newly selected font. It does not.

July 30th, 2013 4:30pm

This problem happens to my 2013 OneNote too. When I keep typing in a textbox, the font will always change from my defaul Times New Roman to SimSun or Calibri.
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October 31st, 2013 11:46pm

Good description - I can confirm that problem exists - and is very annoying. Pages generated in a OneNote with different font seemingly cannot be changed to the "local font" without manually copy and paste without formatting - which of course loses all the formatting.  

I would love to see OneNote be able to display the control characters much like the paragraph marks and section breaks in MS Word which, when displayed, allow you to more easily deal with formatting issues.

January 8th, 2014 7:43pm

I can also confirm this problem exists. In my situation, I had originally created a bunch of pages (~100 or so) with a default font of Times New Roman. Recently I decided I would rather have my notes in Calibri, so I changed my default font to Calibri. But every time I hit enter to make a new paragraph in an existing page (that was created when Times New Roman was the default font), it reverts the font to Times New Roman.

I think this needs to be solved, the comment above is a good one: OneNote needs to have more of the same functionality as Word and PowerPoint. It could be a really powerful tool if it incorporated more formatting tools from Word and PowerPoint!

 
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January 24th, 2014 6:20pm

Agreed that this needs to be resolved. It appears that whatever the default font was when a page template was created is what it's always going to be. So, I "fixed" it by doing the following:

  1. Set the default font to my liking.
  2. Set the new page template to "No Default Template". (Insert tab -> Page Templates dropdown button -> Page Templates... -> set Always use a specific template dropdown to "No Default Template".)
  3. Create a new page (with no template).
  4. Set whatever template stuff you like.
  5. Then, click "Save current page as template" (in Templates window).

The new template has the default font set correctly. Of course, if Microsoft doesn't fix this issue by the time you decide to switch default fonts, you get to repeat this process.


  • Edited by Corrbs Tuesday, May 20, 2014 8:48 PM
May 20th, 2014 8:48pm

Agreed that this needs to be resolved. It appears that whatever the default font was when a page template was created is what it's always going to be. So, I "fixed" it by doing the following:

  1. Set the default font to my liking.
  2. Set the new page template to "No Default Template". (Insert tab -> Page Templates dropdown button -> Page Templates... -> set Always use a specific template dropdown to "No Default Template".)
  3. Create a new page (with no template).
  4. Set whatever template stuff you like.
  5. Then, click "Save current page as template" (in Templates window).

The new template has the default font set correctly. Of course, if Microsoft doesn't fix this issue by the time you decide to switch default fonts, you get to repeat this process.


  • Edited by Corrbs Tuesday, May 20, 2014 8:48 PM
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May 20th, 2014 11:48pm

Agreed that this needs to be resolved. It appears that whatever the default font was when a page template was created is what it's always going to be. So, I "fixed" it by doing the following:

  1. Set the default font to my liking.
  2. Set the new page template to "No Default Template". (Insert tab -> Page Templates dropdown button -> Page Templates... -> set Always use a specific template dropdown to "No Default Template".)
  3. Create a new page (with no template).
  4. Set whatever template stuff you like.
  5. Then, click "Save current page as template" (in Templates window).

The new template has the default font set correctly. Of course, if Microsoft doesn't fix this issue by the time you decide to switch default fonts, you get to repeat this process.


  • Edited by Corrbs Tuesday, May 20, 2014 8:48 PM
May 20th, 2014 11:48pm

This is the single most frustrating problem I consistently face with OneNote 2013. I lose time and concentration every time OneNote changes my default font (Tahoma 14 pt) to Calibri 11 pt. I must stop my flow of concentration and reformat the text from Calibri to Tahoma. While this may seem to some to be an insignificant issue, to those of us who are visually-oriented (and troubled by poor vision) using the font we choose IS significant. Please resolve this issue soon.

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May 21st, 2014 7:20pm

One trick that has always worked for me when encountering "stuck" or hidden formatting issues in any of the Office components is to copy and paste the malfunctioning text into Notepad, save as a text file, and then copy and paste it back into a new document, spreadsheet, OneNote page, etc. This strips all the formatting off of the text in question so I can begin anew. Obviously this isn't the solution if the text in question has a bunch of formatting that I want to keep, but it sounded as if the only formatting issue in the case in this discussion had to do with font.

On another note, is anyone else experiencing Word and Excel 2013 crashing all the time? This is with 8G of RAM, and the earlier versions never crashed. Incredibly frustrating - means I have to save my work every few words if I don't want to lose it instead of every few sentences or paragraph as I've done in the past. Reminds me of the craziness of Win95 back in the day. A huge step backward for these otherwise reliable programs.

May 26th, 2014 5:22pm

I have just now encountered the same problem on OneNote 2013, it's terribly annoying.

  • Edited by Deltron Friday, May 30, 2014 11:22 AM
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May 30th, 2014 11:22am

I have just now encountered the same problem on OneNote 2013, it's terribly annoying.

  • Edited by Deltron Friday, May 30, 2014 11:22 AM
May 30th, 2014 2:22pm

I have just now encountered the same problem on OneNote 2013, it's terribly annoying.

  • Edited by Deltron Friday, May 30, 2014 11:22 AM
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May 30th, 2014 2:22pm

It is very annoying. I have found that hitting <ENTER> when at the beginning of a line, rather than the end, and then using the <UP> arrow to move to the new line will preserve the font.'

Others may find this acceptable. I have moved my notes to the DavidRM Journal.

June 11th, 2014 9:26pm

Ugh, having the exactly same problem. It's been 1 years and guess it's not solved yet!!

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July 7th, 2014 5:30pm

This happened until I clicked in the ribbon Styles > Normal; it was set to Heading 1, and kept switching back to the Heading 1 format on return. I switched to Normal, and then it works fine.
  • Proposed as answer by gjmoran Wednesday, April 08, 2015 3:39 PM
July 31st, 2014 2:55pm

This happened until I clicked in the ribbon Styles > Normal; it was set to Heading 1, and kept switching back to the Heading 1 format on return. I switched to Normal, and then it works fine.
  • Proposed as answer by gjmoran Wednesday, April 08, 2015 3:39 PM
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July 31st, 2014 2:55pm

This happened until I clicked in the ribbon Styles > Normal; it was set to Heading 1, and kept switching back to the Heading 1 format on return. I switched to Normal, and then it works fine.
July 31st, 2014 5:55pm

No, I'm sorry, the style was and still is set to Normal.

Hitting Enter still reverts back to the original font, and does not carry the font of the preceding paragraph forward like Word does.

Do the developers understand how annoying this problem is?

When is this problem going to be fixed?

  • Proposed as answer by DannyQuah Tuesday, February 10, 2015 5:48 AM
  • Unproposed as answer by DannyQuah Tuesday, February 10, 2015 5:48 AM
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September 30th, 2014 10:23am

No, I'm sorry, the style was and still is set to Normal.

Hitting Enter still reverts back to the original font, and does not carry the font of the preceding paragraph forward like Word does.

Do the developers understand how annoying this problem is?

When is this problem going to be fixed?

  • Proposed as answer by DannyQuah Tuesday, February 10, 2015 5:48 AM
  • Unproposed as answer by DannyQuah Tuesday, February 10, 2015 5:48 AM
September 30th, 2014 10:23am

No, I'm sorry, the style was and still is set to Normal.

Hitting Enter still reverts back to the original font, and does not carry the font of the preceding paragraph forward like Word does.

Do the developers understand how annoying this problem is?

When is this problem going to be fixed?

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September 30th, 2014 1:23pm

No, I'm sorry, the style was and still is set to Normal.

Hitting Enter still reverts back to the original font, and does not carry the font of the preceding paragraph forward like Word does.

Do the developers understand how annoying this problem is?

When is this problem going to be fixed?

  • Proposed as answer by DannyQuah 6 hours 4 minutes ago
  • Unproposed as answer by DannyQuah 6 hours 4 minutes ago
September 30th, 2014 1:23pm

No, I'm sorry, the style was and still is set to Normal.

Hitting Enter still reverts back to the original font, and does not carry the font of the preceding paragraph forward like Word does.

Do the developers understand how annoying this problem is?

When is this problem going to be fixed?

  • Proposed as answer by DannyQuah Tuesday, February 10, 2015 5:48 AM
  • Unproposed as answer by DannyQuah Tuesday, February 10, 2015 5:48 AM
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September 30th, 2014 1:23pm

The ribbon style trick worked for me. I'll have to see if it continues to work in other docs or was a fluke. I selected the entire note text and then clicked on Normal in the ribbon Styles. So far so good.
November 17th, 2014 1:37am

When I hit a Return and the font switches back to what I don't want, backspace to go back up and then go to Styles.  It *looks* like it's set on Normal. But go ahead and mouse-click Normal anyway. Then hit return. The font no longer switches. Who knew.
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February 2nd, 2015 3:51am

I've experimented a little more with this now and "Styles/Normal"  step (I describe in response to a subquestion below) has fixed almost all the problems I'd encountered with the Font changes you describe.  Again, to be clear, when you first mouse over to Styles, it'll look like "Normal" has already been selected. I previously thought that too, but then the Font change kept recurring.  Ignore what you see and click "Normal" (even if it looks already selected) after you've done the "File/Options" change to the font you prefer.  On the page you're having issues with, if possible, select All and set "Styles/Normal"; if that's not feasible or desirable, just to go where you're having these Font change problems, and do it there.  Like I say, this has fixed pretty much all the Font change problems I'd previously had.

February 10th, 2015 12:52am

Thanks for the fix - the Calibri font switch after using the [Enter] key was driving me crazy. Selecting "Styles/Normal" seems to work though the action removes all my previous font selections (e.g., color, bold) and I have to implement the change on each page. Please let me know if there is a global fix or even by tab (versus each page).
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February 20th, 2015 6:05pm

This happened until I clicked in the ribbon Styles > Normal; it was set to Heading 1, and kept switching back to the Heading 1 format on return. I switched to Normal, and then it works fine.
This worked for me, thank you very much. Why would MS make the other Style as default? So annoying!
April 8th, 2015 3:40pm

I had this issue too.  I changed the default font and size in options, verified it was using the "Normal" style. The issue persisted.  My solution ended up being to create a new text field in the same OneNote page and copy and paste the text from the original text field.  From then on it worked properly - keeping the new default font and text size when pressing Enter.  It almost feels as though the original default font was locked to the text field since that was the default when the field was created.
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April 21st, 2015 5:10pm

I had experienced the same problem and here is what I found that was able to get rid of the problem.

Select the entire text box with the font changing problem. Once the text box is selected, go to Styles in the ribbon, under the drop down, select Clear Formatting. 

This should get rid of the weird font changing problem and reset the formatting back to whatever the default font was.

April 29th, 2015 10:43am

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