Placing text from word and retaining formatting while changing font

Hoping someone can help and apologies if this is a newbie question. I need to place text from a word doc into illustrator and keep the bold and italic formatting but change the font. When I place the text, it comes in as Arial and retains formatting. But I need to change it to another font family and keep the bold/italic. Is there a way to do that? Any help greatly appreciated!