Question

I must create an installer which will change default font in MS Office (versions 2010, 2007 and 2003) for default user.

How can I accomplish this?

My first guess was to iterate over MS products and set registry key:
I have tried with registry key (ex. ...Office/14.0/(product ex. Word)/Options with default font: Arial,11), but there was no effect.

After this I’ve tried to create folder Templates in .../Default User/App Data/Microsoft/Templates/ and put there Normal.dotm. After creating new user – in his local App Data – this file was renamed to NormalOld.dotm and standard Normal.dotm file was created by MS Word.

How should I do this?

I’m using WIX installer so I can modify registry keys, copy files, and so on in installation process.

Answer 1

Ok. I’ve found solution:

For MS Word

1. Create customNormal.dotm (cusotmNormal.dot for 2007) – simply
   open new document, modify it as you wish and “Save as…” template (“ms word 97-2003
   template” for word 2003).
2. Put these files in C:\Users\Default\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Templates (in win 7 eng). In other Windows distrubutions seek in Documents and Settings, Application Data, and without Roaming in path.
3. Load deafult user hive in regedit on HKU/<hive>. Hive is in C:\Users\Default\ntuser.dat (hidden)
4. set in HKU/[your hive name]/Software/Microsoft/Office/[11.0|12.0|14.0]/Word/Options name: GlobalDotName, value: customNormal.dotm, type: REG_SZ if you have MS Word 2010 (14.0) or MS Word 2007 (12.0) and customNormal.dot for MS Word (11.0).
5. Unload the hive

For MS PowerPoint

1. Create Blank.potx (2010 and 2007) template just like for MS Word above and Blank.pot (2003)
2. Put these files in templates folder like in 2. for MS Word

For MS Excel

1. Create book.xltx (2010 and 2007) template just like for MS Word above and book.xlt (2003)
2. Put these files in <templates folder>/../Excel/XLSTART. For example: C:/Users/Default/AppData/Roaming/Microsoft/Excel/XLSTART

EDIT

And for MS Outlook

1. Open ms outlook. This will create file NormalEmail.dotm in your templates folder
2. Open this file (not New – default operation on double-click) change styles->fonts->(your font) and change it as you wish. Save it.
3. Put this file in default user templates folder for win 7: C:\Users\Default\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Templates

There is other solution for Normal.dotm MS Word 2010/2007 and for Outlook 2010 (that didn’t work for me):
Resolution for Normal.dotm and Outlook 2010