Enforcing a Desired Font

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated April 29, 2023)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Excel in Microsoft 365, and 2021


Bryan has an Excel workbook that is shared in his office. He created the workbook and set the default font, but someone is changing the font. Bryan wonders if he can force the font to his desired font when the workbook is closed.

An easy way to do this is to use the BeforeClose event handler for the workbook. You can have the handler step through each of the worksheets and set the font for all the cells in this manner:

Private Sub Workbook_BeforeClose(Cancel As Boolean)
    Dim s As Worksheet

    For Each s In ActiveWorkbook.Sheets
        s.Cells.Font.Name = "Calibri"
    Next
End Sub

This sets the font to Calibri, but you can change the font name, as necessary. If you need to change other font characteristics, you can modify the event handler to do so:

Private Sub Workbook_BeforeClose(Cancel As Boolean)
    Dim s As Worksheet

    For Each s In ActiveWorkbook.Sheets
        With s.Cells.Font
            .Name = "Calibri"
            .Size = 10
        End With
    Next
End Sub

You'll want to be careful, though, changing too many font characteristics, as you may end up getting rid of some you want to keep, such as bold or italic.

Remember that these macros should be added to the ThisWorkbook object in the Visual Basic Editor.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (4801) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Excel in Microsoft 365, and 2021.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Updating Links

When you establish links between data on a target worksheet and data on a source worksheet, those links are typically ...

Discover More

Adjusting the Cursor Blink Rate

In Windows, the cursor indicates where you are about to type information using the keyboard. You can adjust how quickly ...

Discover More

Averaging Values for a Given Month and Year

Excel is often used to analyze data collected over time. In doing the analysis, you may want to only look at data ...

Discover More

Professional Development Guidance! Four world-class developers offer start-to-finish guidance for building powerful, robust, and secure applications with Excel. The authors show how to consistently make the right design decisions and make the most of Excel's powerful features. Check out Professional Excel Development today!

More ExcelTips (ribbon)

Automatically Formatting for Decimal Places

Cell contents and cell formatting are, in Excel, largely independent of each other. You can enter something in a cell and ...

Discover More

Rounded Corners on Cells

As you are formatting a worksheet, Excel allows you to easily add borders to cells. Adding rounded corners to cells is a ...

Discover More

Ensuring Conditional Formatting and Data Validation is Copied

If you use an Excel worksheet for entering data (a quite common task, actually), then you need to be concerned with how ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is two more than 7?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)


This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the ribbon interface (Excel 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the menu interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.