Can't seem to get textformat to work

[COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]Is there a reason that setTextFormat has no affect on an empty text field? I have set frmt.font = “Arial”; and then setTextFormat and then when I type in the field it always shows up as Times New Romans :\ however if I put even on (non space) character in the field it works fine… is this just how it is?[/FONT][/COLOR]
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[COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]-E[/FONT][/COLOR]