This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Avatar for Username

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

Change Firefox's default fonts (not just the "default font" setting, but really and truly, for all writing systems)

Cal
Cal
more options

I want to change the default fonts in Firefox. The problem is that the "Default font" setting doesn't really do this. Going to the "Advanced" dialog shows the truth: for every single writing system, the entries are 

Serif: (Default) Times New Roman
Sans-Serif: (Default) Arial
Monospace: (Default) Andale Mono

I want to change which fonts Firefox uses for these "(Defaults)," and I want those defaults to apply to every writing system. Going through every writing system and individually changing them - for every user on the system, mind you - is not an acceptable solution. I didn't see anything in about:config. There is a default, and it needs to be changeable somehow. How?

I want to change the default fonts in Firefox. The problem is that the "Default font" setting doesn't really do this. Going to the "Advanced" dialog shows the truth: for every single writing system, the entries are Serif: (Default) Times New Roman Sans-Serif: (Default) Arial Monospace: (Default) Andale Mono I want to change which fonts Firefox uses for these "(Defaults)," and I want those defaults to apply to every writing system. Going through every writing system and individually changing them - for every user on the system, mind you - is not an acceptable solution. I didn't see anything in about:config. There is a default, and it needs to be changeable somehow. How?

Modified by Cal

All Replies (5)

Wesley Branton
Wesley Branton
more options

You are looking for the following preferences (assuming you are only changing the Latin fonts):

  • font.name.serif.x-western
  • font.name.sans-serif.x-western
  • font.name.monospace.x-western

If you are changing something other than Latin, replace the x-western part of the preference with whatever value is listed in the font.language.group preference.

You could use AutoConfig to deploy these changes to Firefox. See Customize Firefox using AutoConfig for more information.

Hope this helps.

Modified by Wesley Branton

Cal
Cal Question owner
more options

This does not solve the problem, and is just doing the same thing the about:preferences page does, but through about:config instead. The crux of my question is that I *don't* want to change it for just the Latin language group - I want to change the *single* default that is inherited by *all* language groups.

I will look into AutoConfig and get back to you; I'm not yet familiar with it.

Thank you very much for your time and help!

Cal
Cal Question owner
more options

As far as I can tell, AutoConfig just allows me to adjust the same preferences as about:config. That will be helpful for centralizing my configuration, once I know what that configuration is, but it doesn't help me change the preference I want if I don't know what that preference is called or if it doesn't exist.

Thanks again!

Wesley Branton
Wesley Branton
more options

I don't believe a preference like that exists.

In your case, it sounds like you will need to manually set the default font for each language group and each of the three font types (serif, sans serif, monospace) within the about:config screen.

You can type font.name. in the about:config search bar to see all of the preferences.

If you have multiple systems to adjust, that's where the AutoConfig that I recommended above would come in handy.

jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

How many pages do you visit that are not covered by

  • Latin
  • Other Writing Systems