[RESOLVED] formatting text in content placeholder

My content placeholder text when a page is generated isn't the same font or size as the body of my page. I was hoping someone could tell me its limits or how to make adjustments to it.

I've looked at properties and I don't see an option to allow the dynamically created text to be formatted in any way.

I've used a div in css to format the text in the area of the placeholder as well to no avail.
Here's the id used as an example.

#contentph
{
position: absolute;
top: 175px;
left: 30px;
width: 618px;
height: 400px;
font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: 12px;
}

Thanks in advance.