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Default language changes

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by jsaltzman

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When spell checking a Word 2000 document created in English, the default language (set to English)changes to French and will not change back. I saved the document under a new name then reopened it. It worked ok until it got to the word cytoplasmicthen changed back to French. I could now reset the language in the spell checker window but it kept changing when it came across a word it didn't know - particularly names in a bibliography. I have already spoken to the makers of EndNote 5 used tocreate the bib library but they had no clue.

If anyone has heard of this, please let me know. Thanks!!

6 replies

by gabacious

By default, Word will try to "auto sense" what language you are typing based on the last five words typed. This feature can be problematic.

Go to "Tools, Language" and note whether the checkbox to "detect language automatically" is set, and if it is, clear it. That may resolve your problem.

You will problably also want to check that when you go into "Tools, Language" and, with English selected, check the button on the bottom left for "Default" to make sure that this is the setting stored in your normal.dot. And, if prompted to save normal.dot when you exist your Word session, be sure to answer yes.

Regards.

by cnwoods

There is one other thing you can check. Have a look in the styles saved in your normal.dot. If either normal text or default font has a language saved as part of the style, it will override your default settings. (Actually any style, for that matter, so you might want to check what style the problematic words are coming up in...) Edit them to delete any reference to language, save changes to normal.dot and your default language should then stay that way.

by cnwoods

Just tried to recreate the issue and found another possible reason. If you go to tools/options, and look under the spelling & grammar tab, click on the dictionaries button beside your custom dictionary file. There is a drop down window for the language of the dictionary. Default value should be (none) but this may be where your persistent french is coming from.

Good luck.

Crystal Woods

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