(re)defining the base font

[stuck]

If I delete my Normal.dotm and allow Word 2010 to create a brand new one from its internal defaults and then I print out the styles for an empty page based on those defaults there are only two styles:
Normal
    Font: (Default) +Body (Calibri), left
     Line spacing: Multiple 1.15 li, Space
     After: 10 pt, Widow/Orphan control, Style: Quick Style

Table Normal
    Font: (Default) +Body (Calibri), left
     Line spacing: Multiple 1.15 li, Space
     After: 10 pt, Widow/Orphan control, Style: Quick Style

I can change the Normal style to whatever I want but I can't find a way to change Table Normal and if my Googling is any good, that's because that's that style can't be edited.

If I add an empty table to my empty page and reprint the styles a third style called Table Grid appears that says it's 'Based on: Table Normal', yet if I put the cursor in any of the cells in the table the cells are styled 'Normal'. When I add text to the table it picks up whatever font/paragraph formatting I've set as style 'Normal' and not as perhaps might be expected the formatting set in style Table Normal.

Given that behaviour it seems like the style Table Normal is redundant but why then is it there as an uneditable default?

Ken

[HansV]

The way Word handles table styles is infuriatingly confusing. Nothing is what it seems...

In Word 2003 and later, Table Grid is the default table style. If you change the font etc. of the Table Grid table style, new tables will reflect these changes.
The Normal style will now have a different meaning within tables than within the rest of the document: in a table cell, Normal uses the settings specified in the Table Grid table style, and elsewhere, it uses the settings specified in the Normal style...

Table Normal has probably been kept for compatibility with older versions, where it was the default table style.

[stuck]

Thank you Hans, makes perfect (MS-non)sense now

Ken