Setting default fonts

[Charles Muller]

 Marco Baringer helpfully advised:

> 
> M-x set-default-font TAB
> 
> will give you all the fonts available. this is kind of hackish, but it
> works.

My apologies for my denseness--I am completely new to Emacs, and am struggling.

When I do like the above, I then get a request for information like

  Font name:

But I don't know what I am supposed to input here.
 
When I do this:

> (insert (frame-parameter nil 'font))

Then, when I start Emacs, the first thing I get is a listing of an Adobe 
Courier 12 point font. But I don't know what I should do with this. Is there 
any chance that I could get you to explain just a bit further. I think I am 
almost there (I have gotten XML validation working, MEW working, and Japanese 
input working, so I should be able to work through this matter of default 
fonts!)

Thanks much,

Chuck

------------------------------