How can I change the default font used in ALL plots and legends in Mathematica?

Question

Forgive me, but I cannot for the life of me figure out how to do this no matter how much I research. I really want to change the default font for all graphics, such as ArrayPlot, ContourPlot, DiscretePlot3D, etc. as well as the fonts used in any legends / axes / labels / (everything) to Times New Roman (I'm in Mathematica 10 so everything is sans serif by default). I know that I can set all of these manually usually by using something like Directive[FontFamily -> "Times New Roman"], but it's killing me to do this for every single graph. I've tried to use stylesheets to do this but I cannot figure out how to get them working. I'm sorry that this is so basic, but if you could just provide a simple, step-by-step solution to achieve this, I would be eternally grateful. Thank you very much.

Answer 1

You can control the fonts that are used through a stylesheet. First, note the style definition used by the DefaultBaseStyle GraphicsBox option:

Options[GraphicsBox, DefaultBaseStyle]

{DefaultBaseStyle -> "Graphics"}

This means that the following options are used unless overridden:

CurrentValue[{StyleDefinitions, "Graphics"}]

{CellMargins -> {{4, Inherited}, {Inherited, Inherited}}, CellGroupingRules -> "GraphicsGrouping", StripStyleOnPaste -> False, PageBreakWithin -> False, GeneratedCell -> True, CellAutoOverwrite -> True, ShowCellLabel -> False, DefaultFormatType -> DefaultOutputFormatType, ContextMenu -> {MenuItem["Cu&t Graphics Selection", "Cut"], MenuItem["&Copy Graphics Selection", "Copy"], MenuItem["&Paste into Graphic", FrontEnd`Paste[After]], Delimiter, MenuItem["&Drawing Tools", FrontEndExecute[{FrontEnd`NotebookOpen[ FrontEnd`FindFileOnPath["DrawingTools.nb", "PrivatePathsSystemResources"]]}]], MenuItem["&Get Coordinates", FrontEndExecute[FrontEnd`Select2DTool["GetCoordinates"]]], Delimiter, MenuItem["G&roup", "Group"], MenuItem["&Ungroup", "Ungroup"], Delimiter, MenuItem["Move to &Front", "MoveToFront"], MenuItem["Move to &Back", "MoveToBack"], MenuItem["Move For&ward", "MoveForward"], MenuItem["Move Bac&kward", "MoveBackward"]}, "AutoStyleOptionsHighlightMisspelledWords" -> False, LanguageCategory -> "NaturalLanguage", FormatType -> StandardForm, ShowStringCharacters -> False, NumberMarks -> False, CounterIncrements -> "Graphics", ImageMargins -> {{43, Inherited}, {Inherited, 0}}, Arrowheads -> 0.04, Dashing -> None, CapForm -> "Square", JoinForm -> {"Miter", 3.25}, LineColor -> GrayLevel[0], LineOpacity -> 1, EdgeColor -> GrayLevel[0], EdgeOpacity -> 1, EdgeThickness -> Medium, EdgeDashing -> None, EdgeCapForm -> "Square", EdgeJoinForm -> {"Miter", 3.25}, FrontFaceColor -> GrayLevel[0], BackFaceColor -> GrayLevel[0], FrontFaceOpacity -> 1, BackFaceOpacity -> 1, GraphicsColor -> GrayLevel[0], PointSize -> Absolute[3], Thickness -> Medium, Opacity -> 1, DrawEdges -> False, StyleMenuListing -> None, FontFamily -> "Arial", FontSize -> 10, FontWeight -> "Plain", FontColor -> GrayLevel[0], FontOpacity -> 1}

In particular note the option value for the font family:

CurrentValue[{StyleDefinitions, "Graphics", FontFamily}]

"Arial"

So, to have Mathematica use the font "Times New Roman" you can just change the stylesheet. For instance:

SetOptions[
    EvaluationNotebook[],
    StyleDefinitions -> Notebook[
        {
        Cell[StyleData[StyleDefinitions->"Default.nb"]],
        Cell[StyleData["Graphics"], FontFamily->"Times New Roman"]
        },
        StyleDefinitions->"PrivateStylesheetFormatting.nb"
    ]
]

Let's see this in action:

Plot[Sin[x], {x, 0, Pi}, PlotLabel->"FooBar"]

There may be other GraphicsBox options that may need adjusting, e.g., DefaultLabelStyle, which can be handled in the same way.

Addendum

A comment requested support for PDF export as well. PDF export uses the "Printout" style environment, so one needs to add:

Cell[StyleData["Graphics", "Printout"], FontFamily->"Times New Roman"]

to the style sheet as well. Another, perhaps better possibility, is to use All. So, the following should work:

SetOptions[
    EvaluationNotebook[],
    StyleDefinitions -> Notebook[
        {
        Cell[StyleData[StyleDefinitions->"Default.nb"]],
        Cell[StyleData["Graphics", All], FontFamily->"Times New Roman"]
        },
        StyleDefinitions->"PrivateStylesheetFormatting.nb"
    ]
]

Answer 2

Try to see if this works for you. (add all the type of plots in the command below you want to set)

SetOptions[{Plot,ListPlot,ArrayPlot,ContourPlot,DiscretePlot3D},
    BaseStyle->{14,Directive[FontFamily->"Times New Roman"]}];

For BarLegend, it does not use BaseStyle so add this

SetOptions[{BarLegend},LabelStyle->{14,Directive[FontFamily->"Times New Roman"]}];

And now do

Plot[Sin[x],{x,-1,1},PlotLabel->"This is my plot", 
      AxesLabel->{"this is X","this is Y"}]

etc...

It will have the font family and size indicated in the SetOptions command for all plots.