I select the text tool, click, write some text, highlight it, then click the down arrow next to "Bitstream Vera Sans" (the current font). I get a drop down menu of a whole bunch of fonts, but when I click or double click on them, the font doesn't change, and it still says "Bitstream Vera Sans".

Any thoughts on why this won't change?

Thanks,

Dave

I'm not sure if it's technically a bug, but basically you can't always change font and related things from the font tool control bar. But if you use Text > Text and Font dialog, you can do all that stuff from there

There should be a big "T" on the task bar in Inkscape that will allow you to change text.

What version of Inkscape are using?
I know that in version 0.46 (I think from memory0 there was a known bug where entered text always defaulted to the default set font no matter what font you selected.
Version 0.47 does not have this problem.