Word: How do I correct erratic formatting (font/style behavior)?

[RV in MA]

I loaded MSOffice 2003 PRO. Excel works fine, but Word is screwy.

When I type a word, then add a space for a new word (whether in a new or
existing document), the formatting (font) changes from "Normal" (Futura -
which is what I want) to "Normal+Times Roman" (Times New Roman).

I tried "Repairing" MSOffice; that didn't work.
I ran McAfee A/V and that says I'm OK.
I deleted the whole program and reinstalled it (and made sure that I have
all the updates); that didn't work.

Suggestions or recommendations are appreciated. I feel like removing the
installation once more, and going back to Office 2000. I've been using Word
since 1.0 (yeah, I know that's 20 years...), and I have never had this kind
of problem. Thank you for any help you can offer.
-RV

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

It sounds as if you are (or Word thinks you are) pressing Ctrl+Spacebar
rather than just Spacebar, which resets the characters to the default
paragraph font. This suggests that you haven't actually changed the default
font to Futura. You can do that for a single document by modifying the font
of Normal style or for all documents by changing it in Format | Font and
clicking Default...