Google Tutor

How to Change Your Default Font and Styling in Gmail

Posted: 04 Jan 2010 05:00 AM PST

Personally, I don’t spend too much time thinking about how my emails look. Most of my messages are quick, to the point, and have a professional goal. I’ve never really felt like spending the time to change the color and font of my Gmail messages, before hitting the send button. I’ve always liked receiving emails that are a little more personalized, and often businesses will send emails with a distinct font or characteristic color that matches their brand. Friends often send me emails in all colors of the rainbow, some easier to read than others. Nonetheless, making your email stand out and more personal is a way a lot of people like to express themselves. I would have done the same, had it been effortless and simple. In Gmail, now it is.

How to change your default text styling

A new function in Gmail labs lets you decide the default font and style your emails are composed in. This is how you change your Gmail messages from plain black text, to a default setting that is completely personalized:

Browse to Labs in your Gmail account.
Look for the function called “Default Text Styling”, the easiest way to find it is to use ctrl + F or command + F to do a search using these words on the page. It is about halfway down the list of Labs functions.
Change the function to Enabled, and save your changes by clicking on ’save changes’ at the bottom or top of the page.
You are not brought back to your inbox view. Now, click on “Settings”.
On the “General” tab in settings you will now see a box with Default Text Style about half way down the page:
You can highlight the sample text in the text box, and change the settings using the buttons displayed above. For example, you can change the font:
You can also change the color of your email text:
I changed both the font and color of my default text, and this is what it looks like now:
If, after playing around with the settings you regret your choices, and want to go back to the default settings and start over, you can do so very easily with the button on the far right:

After clicking this button, my settings went right back to the default:

Are your messages going to be more colorful now that you can change your default text settings? I might keep the dark purple look, but I’m curious to see whether or not you will use this new feature in Gmail Labs in the comments!

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