how do you set Outlook to print all text in bold

Hi @James Bailey, 

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A forum.  

Thank you for reaching out and sharing your experience with us. 

I understand the importance of having clear and consistent formatting, and I sincerely apologize if there’s any inconvenience this may have caused. 

However, Outlook does not currently provide a built-in method to make all printed text appear in bold. As an alternative, you can increase the font size for better visibility: 

To increase font size in classic Outlook: 

1. Open Outlook and go to File > Options. 
2. Select Mail, then click Stationery and Fonts. 

3. Under Composing and reading messages, choose your preferred font and size. 

4. Save changes and print again for improved readability. 

If you were expecting a specific Outlook feature for bold printing, please let me know so I can confirm its availability or suggest other solutions. 

Note: Please understand that our initial response does not always resolve the issue immediately. However, with your help and more detailed information, we can work together to find a solution.  

I hope this information is helpful. Please follow these steps and let me know if it works for you. If not, we can work together to resolve this.    

Thank you for your patience and your understanding. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please feel free to share them in the comments on this post so I can continue to support you. 

I look forward to continuing the conversation. 

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Hi James,

Unfortunately, there’s no setting that automatically prints all text in bold. Outlook will print the message using whatever formatting the email already has. If you want the text to print in bold, it needs to be formatted that way beforehand.

If you want to set a new default format for new messages, replies and forwards using your preferred font in bold, here are the steps:

Outlook Classic:

File > Options > Mail > Stationery and fonts. Click on Font and adjust it to your preferred settings.

New Outlook:

Click the gear icon on top > Email > Compose and reply. From there, you can set your preferred settings.

You can change your preferred appearance of text but it will only apply to text that you compose (in a new mail or in a reply). You can't control the appearance of text in e-mails that are sent to you (except for plain text messages).

One thing that you can do is to increase the text zoom when composing and reading messages. It will affect all mail that you read or write in Outlook, but it won't affect printouts.