How To Change Default Gmail Font and Use Stylish Text In Mails
Gmail by default gives 11 font choices which are more than enough for an average user. But sometimes we would like to have stylish fonts used in our mails to impress our friends or standard font mail for business communication.
Another problem with Gmail is the font size, which is sometimes too small to use. Did you ever wish for font settings that you can use every time? Good news is that it is possible. You can make use of hundreds of stylish fonts available on your computer to write a mail with a simple trick. Once you use this stylish text for decorating your message in Gmail you can then reuse it anywhere and anytime. As soon as you get used to this technique, you need not to reset the settings each time for sending mails. Following is the method for using a font that isn’t in Gmail:
Using Different Fonts in Gmail Other Than Provided
1. First thing you need to do is to turn on Canned Responses in Gmail. Canned response is a feature which lets you insert same text in different mails. Thus it works like an automated message which saves your time as you need not to write same thing again and again. To turn-on this feature, go to Gmail settings > Labs tab > Canned Response section > Enable it and save changes.
2. Now open MS Office Word or any other document editor and choose your desired font, size and color. Now type some sample text like Dear XYZ using preselected font settings. Give some space after the sample text by either having multiple spaces or few lines by pressing Enter key.
3. Select all sample text plus white space (Press Ctrl + a) and then copy it (Press Ctrl + c).
4. Now, go to compose message in Gmail and paste (Press Ctrl + v) the previous copied text. You will notice that your desired font has been inserted into mail body.
5. Save this font style by clicking on canned responses below subject box and selecting Save > New caned response. Give a convenient name to remember like font name.
6. It’s done :). From now on whenever you would like to use different font in Gmail, just click on canned responses and select the previously stored font. Your sample text will appear and when you type along with it, the fonts will automatically change.
The question is whether the recipients can see this font if they don’t have it on their system?
Which is why I normally go to a traditional plain text (just in case some of them are still using a traditional Linux mail client (pine?)) lol guess I’m just being over paranoid
This won’t work when the recipient does not have the selected font installed on their computer.
Hii Abhishek
Thanks for the great trick. I searched for it for hours a few days ago. Could not find it though.
Try increasing popularity by saving a bookmark in delicious yourself, it is useful as ur gmail trick is very unique and impossible to find through google in first 100 results.
Try replying to people in twitter who are frustrated with Gmail fonts. In my search i found many.
Also its ‘Default Gmail Font’ and not ‘Default Gmail fonts’ i was searching for.
Hope that helps.
Also Read a few blogging tricks from problogger they are very useful
Rishi
http://twitter.com/im_rishi
@Rishi
Glad to know that you liked it. And Thanks for identifying flaw, correction has been made.
And indeed, I need to make this post more popular with people who are in search with Gmail font. Thanks for the advice.
@Michael and sander
You are absolutely right. Recipients must have the same set of fonts as of the sender. Therefore the sender must always confirm the availability at receivers’ system Or else mail would end up with plain text.
Looking at the visitor stats for gtricks and from w3shools and marketshare reports, 90% or the visitors use MS Windows which mitigates the risk of proper font visibility and hence a minor issue to worry about.
By the way, thanks for advising this flaw. I dint think from this perspective.
And for all others, Do NOT use unusual or bizarre fonts until you are sure that receiving party has it on their system.
Hi, i tried to follow the instructions but when i insert the new template i just created nothing happens. would it be because i am creating the template from Open Office instead of MSOffice?
This did not work, I tried many fonts and never translated onto the message
@ Isabelleok
I am not sure about the Open Office compatibility. This trick is supposed to work on rich text applications. Can anyone else please try this for the community?
@ Jessy
Remember jessy to copy extra space from sample text and while writing mail, start it from pasted location. The font should automatically change to desired settings. Hope this helps.
Tell me if this works or else we will try an alternate method. :)
Thanks for the great tricks brother
@abhishek: Maybe one day emails will be in Flash or whatever new format so everyone can see the same styles, same emoticons, and whatever you can have in an email :)
Hi all, well i figured out what my issue was, I was using Google Chrome! It seems that you cannot see anything with Google Chrome regarding cutting and pasting,as its still only Beta perhaps they have to tweak it still….
@Michael: I am disparately waiting for such day when all vendors will be having common standardized approach for communication. Imagine a day, where everyone could use any format.
Isabelleok: Works fine on Google Chrome for me. Anyways its good to know that Open Office is comfortable with this trick. Go with software engineering approach here: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Glad to know that his article helped.
Help, I fixed that canned response and it worked, but now all the fonts on everything on my gmail is huge!! What to do?
Brenda, Click on T icon on the toolbar just above message box and select Normal.
Hope that helps. Get back to me, if you face any other problem :)
This isn’t working for me….I have an Open Office document program and when I copy from that nothing will paste in my google email…..very frustrating…..I don’t have MS Office and I WILL NOT be getting it. Is this one of those things I have to have in order for it to work?????
@Paul – I am not sure whether this trick works with Open Office or not. And I can understand your frustration for MS Office.
Well, try this online text editors – http://michaelsync.net/2008/05/04/silverlight-rich-text-editor-demo
Do tell me, whether this proved useful or not.
This isn’t working for me. Could you help? I did exactly what is said. Ugh!
Of course, I tried it again and it worked! Isn’t that always the case. THANKS!
good tip, thanks
hope it will work with hebrew interface as well (?)
How to change color of Subject text in gmail?
@Gauri –
Sorry Gauri, there is no way to change color or include HTML/Rich formatting in Subject of message.
However, to make it attractive, you can use special characters (that are not present on keyboard) from here.
its not working can u help me???
@vichu – Can you please elaborate your problem. In which step are you facing difficulty?
– Author
“Always happy to help”
Thank you! -Been pulling my hair for hours and hours trying to customize before reading this
Hello all,
Whenever I send an email to a gmail account, it makes my Gil Sans font signature Times New Roman. Is there anyway to protect the font- especially of its a standard system font??
Thanks!
@partee – Whatever font you are using must be installed on receivers machine. Else Gmail will display default or system fonts.
Hello Abhishek,
Thanks for this great trick!
I am always after.. using all new kind of fonts, but gmail got only few types. But now i can use any system fonts in my mails..Realy grt one..!
But, I jus found one issue… Calibri font was not getting copied, i dnt know whts the issue wit tht, others all are getting saved in thr styles, except Calibri….Do you have any idea..y is it so??
Thanks again!
followed all the steps, but when i copied the word document, it did not have the font from the word document….did this twice and nothing happened.
I followed your instructions to the letter, as well as those on the site that linked me to yours. I couldn’t get Gmail and Canned responses to accept any new fonts. And even if I did; there’s a good chance the recipient would not have the same font.
I did find a way to get a different font in the body of the mail. It works every time, and the recipient always sees it. Just type your message in Wordpad or Notepad, using the desired font. Use Snipping Tool or equivalent to get a picture of the message and insert that picture into the body area of the message.
That didn’t help
Sorry to know that. Can you please tell what went wrong?
Gmail seems to strip the markup now. Only the font size is retained
You can indeed, type a message using any font and the recipient will see that font without that font being on their computer. The method requires a bit of learning and practice before you can do it quickly and easily.
Install Gimp, a free photo editing software.
Type your message inside Gimp, using any font you have or have downloaded. You can use any font, any size, any color.
Save the message as a picture, .jpg, .png, etc.
Insert the picture inline in the email, where the body of the email would normally be.
If you type on a white background in Gimp, your message will appear to have been typed on the email page.
That’s a nice workaround. Only make sure that the recipient has selected to display image in the mail, else it will look blank. I am little concerned about the size of such image. By your experience, what will be size of a normal few lines of formatted text message as image?
Abhishek Mandloi
I’m not sure what you mean by ‘formatted’. What the recipient will see is a picture of the message. The type will look exactly as though it had been typed on the page. It will be jpg, png, etc. and not html. So , of course, none of the text can be copied and pasted by the usual means.
Size is no problem. This can be adjusted in Gimp to standard letter size or whatever size you want. If after placing it inline in Gmail, you decide you want a different size, you can also make adjustments, there.
I use this technique often. I have a blank letterhead (jpg) for my association. I put it in Gimp, type my message, save it, and then insert it inline in an email. Looks great.
PS
Everyone I know has Gmail set to display this type picture/message. Otherwise, they would never see pictures of family and friends sent to them.
If you like, I could send you an example.
Got it :)
never thought of using image for letterhead. This is really nice technique for corporate communications.
It doesn’t work, when I try font. Does Pages count?
I am proficient in the use of Canned Responses that I use, Save, Change, every day and I have done this exercise and it does not work. Maybe it worked in the past, but it doesn’t work any more as far as I can see, the moment I paste, it is back to Gmail’s own font.
Try ith with HTML version of Gmail.
I do as it says…and it still doesnt work.
really sucks..since gmail is pretty much all there is to use
Not really. I’m just looking for a way to make a simple gmail signature with only one font and no double spaces
I tried this, and when I tried to open a new message using the canned response it didn’t work, it went back to my old font but just used what I had named the font I wanted into the subject line.
As others are commenting, Gmail has stopped supporting custom fonts.
Abhishek:
Thank you for the very clear instructions. Unfortunately, I do not get the ‘canned responses’ link in the editor. Besides, the recipient needs to have the font you use. Otherwise, it falls back to the default (Latin) font of the computer, or worse, if you use a Unicode (double-byte) font, they will see only garbage, lacking a default font for that language.
The root cause of this problem is that Gmail editor is from 1980s. There are web based editors that allow you to select any font from your system. An example is this:
http://premiumsoftware.net/cleditor/
Google only needs to update their Gmail page, but I understand that they haven’t seen a life-and-death need to do it.
Making email with fancy text is not a huge need.
works fine for me. highly recommend it for other interested users.
nope, did not work at all :( and I have been trying repeatedly
Sorry Jenn, not all techniques works now. But if you compose your mail from a desktop client, then you can use any mail you want.
It’s worked. Thank you. I’ve selected Calibri, so I believe recipients will be able to see it.
How to insert the Calibri font in Gmail ?
How to save the font ?
I have tried this several times, only the wordings are stored in the canned responses, not the font.
What shall I do??????
Please help
As others have pointed out, this method work sometimes when you use Google fonts.
i have a font called Kremlin Kommisar [sic], and I typed something into word, but when I pasted it into Gmail, it came out as Times New Roman before I even saved the canned response!
Looks like this trick isn’t working now.
Thanks a Million. It has worked
I did a version of this, but I made my signature in Word/Google Docs with several lines above it all in the font that I want to use. Then when I open a new email, I just have to use the down arrow or mouse to start typing two lines down in the top of the extra lines of my signature where it is formatted with the font I like. I can either delete the extra two lines above my email or leave them, it’s just spaces and most folks won’t necessarily notice the extra lines.
_
_
Begin my email in selected font
_
Signature begins