Language Keeps Changing in Word

As much as I like Word, it really does cause a lot of headaches for everyone that uses it and through them, me.

Latest issue that's popping up...Word documents with some words or all the words set to a language other than English - US, such as French or Spanish.

This really screws up the spell checker, as you might imagine and it's not exactly intuitive on how to fix it (hint, you can't change the language setting through the spellchecker).

Select the whole document, go to Tools->Language->Set Language->select English (US) and select OK.

Now the question that I have is this, if the normal.dot is set to English (US) why would Word ever change the language of a document based on normal.dot.

I don't know, maybe these sorts of "features" creep into Word and cause problems because the Office team is giving users what they want instead of what they need.

What my users need is a word processing application that always works and that does EXACTLY what the user wants it to do, when they want it to do it, nothing more, nothing less. Word is generally stable, but fails on the second parts. WordPerfect seems to do better on the second parts but fails horribly when it comes to stability (pro viso for this is that I have used WP 8, 9 & 10).

Unfortunately, Microsoft is pretty much now the only game in town when it comes to word processing.

Comments

[Sikko2Go]

Alex,
I understand exactly what you mean. My versions of Word, and that of my co-workers also changes spontaneously to French from time to time. And if there's something that's never found on my computer, it's documents in the French langauge. I don't master it in any way :) However I still haven't found out how to prevent this on a permanent basis. It has nothing to do with Regional Settings or something. Or if it has, it has nothing to do with *me* messing with them at least...

[Richard]

Alex

Thanks. Found your note from a google search & it allowed me to fix a huge document without individually changing the language on every word! Needless to say Office help couldn't provide the answer. Its more annoying for us (in the UK) because its not always obvious when you open a document. Even completely removing US English from the Office language settings doesn't get rid of it. Not sure whether its Bill or George who wants to rule the world these days.

[Tom Levesque]

I've seen this "French" problem many times. I'd be willing to bet that somewhere along the line the document has been edited on a machine that is mistakenly set up to "be french". And once it's saved, the document thinks that it is french. Perhaps a user's normal.dot thinks that it is french. I've seen lots of problems with 1 or 2 users in a group of 100 not having the same normal.dot and having some wacked-out-on-crack setting getting embedded into documents because of it.

[Derek]

Start > programs > microsoft office > microsoft office tools > microsoft office 2003 language settings
Defines default language behavoiur in office.
OK - it only works with office 2003!
I am in the UK and this was set to US despite altering all other language settings.

[Rob]

G'Day
2 years later, and I finally got driven mad by Outlook/Word continually changing language on me - I thought I had set English (Australian) up absolutely everywhere - and had even attmpted to remove English (US) from my computer!
I didn't know about the office language settings though - and sure enough, the default was set to English (US).

[Eduardo Faria]

Hi, I have the same problem and I think that mine is even weirder: I'm trying to write in my MS Word (osx) in portuguese – I'm brazilian - but it keeps changing the language to american english every paragraph I try to type! Anybody found any way to get out of it?

[sadik]

i had the same problem with word, whenever i wanted to write a document in word, i will have to change the language from arabic to english then all of a sudden when you just double click on the free space the lang is back to arabic and the whole document is messed up... but i saw this page and the idea of Tom levesque is the solution coz it solved mine thanx... and the problem is the windows you installed has a different language as its default lang. than the one you want to use in your MS word like me i am using windows XP from egypt which the default lang is arabic then using english is abit disturbing coz it will take you back to ARABIC. ciao

[Abdul-Aziz]

Hey, thanx pal ! These forums and your note on this language issue are a real saviour at times! This one really did save me so much trouble as I was battling with word changing it's languge to french on 1 particular document. Your fix was so simple and effective ! Why i didn't think of that.. i dunno ! THanx once again.

[J Palfrey]

Thanks for this. The post by Tom Levesque helped me solve this problem. YES!
My default was set to Spanish (I live in Spain and have XP in Spanish) but most of my emails are in English.

[Konrad]

Don't know if that helps but taking into account the amount of time, which I spent on looking for solution to that problem think it might be useful to share what I have found. In "regional and language settings I changed the layout of keybord from my current one to the British one, it seems fine. Only minor drawback is that some signs are misplaced for instance " for @ and so on, any way the language works fine. U can always try that

[Ray]

I have tried a zillion ways to get my emails to default to Canadian English when spell-checking using Word as the email editor.
I have done the following:
Start > programs > microsoft office > microsoft office tools > microsoft office 2003 language settings --set to English (Canada)
In Word program ---Tools> Language> Set Language>set Default to English(Canada)
In Word program ---Tools> Language> Set Language>clear the checkbox "Detect Language Automatically"
In Outlook 2003---Tools>Options>Spelling>Choose dictionary to use when checking spelling-English (Canada)
Start>Control Panel>Date, Time, Language and Regional Options>Regional and Language Options>Languages Tab-Text Services and input languages> Details button-chose English(Canada) and removed English (US)
Start>Control Panel>Date, Time, Language and Regional Options>Regional and Language Options>Regional Options Tab-chose English(Canada) and set Location to CanadaStart>Control Panel>Date, Time, Language and Regional Options>Regional and Language Options> Advanced tab, Language for non-Unicode programs set to English (Canada)

I have tried everywhere to add English (Canada) and remove English (US) yet still, the portion of the email written in English (US) will be spell-checked in English (US). Does anyone see a way to make EVERYTHING be checked in English (Canada)?

Thanks

Ray

[Peter]

Following the procedures above worked for one computer, which is now happily in English (UK) but my Dell Vostro refuses to change for more than a day before reverting back to American English. I'm thinking of just moving to the States so my documents will be spell-checked correctly.

[kat]

I've been changing everything - exact same list as Ray above (Konrad) except I don't use outlook - mainly problem for me with Word. I've been very frustrated with the computer automatically switching back to US English for any new text despite changing/checking all the settings over and over. I did finally find a new setting to change, which has worked (for at least a few minutes).

I right click the underlined word > language > English (Canada). I can now type 'behaviour' -- even in a brand new doc. sure hope the new and improved 'behaviour' lasts!

[kat]

back again less than an hour later. Unfortunately the new and improved 'behaviour' of the computer was only temporary. It is back to insisting on US spellings.

[Another Fan of Tom L]

DUDE! ROCK ON!! That suggestion fixed a NUTTY issue for me (and others, it seems!).

Thanks bro! Your START PROG OFFICE TOOLS LANG trick WORKED!

HAHA HAPPY DANCES all around...

[somge]

Thank goodness this worked. This stupid thing was driving me crazy. Everytime I changed the language WORD kept changing it back to Russian. I don't even know Russian!!! I want to kick Bill Gates in the head. So many billions of dollars and he can't create a bug free program?!!!

[Fitty Stim]

I have the opposite problem. My documents are stuck in English (UK) but I want English (USA). I've changed the default a million times but the tip posted by Tom Levesque seems to be working... at least so far.

[Johan van de Merwe]

I had the same problem. I am in Germany, use a US keyboard, but I am Dutch. I have installed a German Office, with spelling languages German, English and Dutch. But Office spelling came standard with Dutch. I de-installed, Dutch, but still comes up with Dutch. Then I have found out that my language in the control panel was set to Dutch, with US International Keyboard. I changed this to German, with US International Keyboard. Now Dutch has disappeared from the Office spelling language list.

[Andrew]

I was writing a report and used some overseas reference data. The imported data "retains" its language format and upsets your local setting. I verified by creating a local document and it displayed my local language preference. To fix the imported data I highlighted all text and changed reset the language format to my local preference. This resulted in my synonym tools working again. Thanks for the ideas.