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Powerpoint keeps ignoring proofing language settings

Anonymous
2020-02-12T09:24:46+00:00

Proofing seems to be completely broken in Powerpoint:

Settings:

I have a Windows installation with the whole UI in US English.

Added languages: English (Netherlands), Dutch (Netherlands)

In Powerpoint, the UI is in English, editing languages are US English (default), and second option is English (Netherlands). Dutch is NOT in the list.

In Powerpoint, the available proofing languages are US English (default), English (Netherlands). and Dutch (Netherlands).

Auto-detect is now on, but previously off with the same issues.

Problem:

I was noticing that often in Powerpoint I would lose the function to skip words by CTRL-Arrow (left/right). This turned out to happen when PPT doesn't recognize a word as valid in the proofing language, so it starts skipping letter instead of words. So I tried forcing the language to English in all cases, but even when setting it as default for the current and all future documents, it will start ignoring the setting again and randomly set the proofing language to Dutch. This can happen in various ways:

  • Some words that do exist in English but do not exist in Dutch are suddenly marked as Dutch.
  • After marking a whole block of text as proofing in English and setting English as default (again), text continued in the same block will ignore the proofing setting and switch to Dutch.
  • Sometimes words are cut up: "Whole" is then recognized as "W" and "hole". Hole is not a valid Dutch word, but the proofing then switches to Dutch for that word and all subsequent typing anyway.
  • Cutting up of words also often happens when deleting characters from a word and changing the word, or just completing it again. For example: changing "conclusion" to "conclusio" and then back to "conclusion", or changing the word to "concluding" will break the proofing, setting it to Dutch, which is not valid either.

There seem to be at least some Powerpoint-specific things going wrong: when I type in Dutch in Outlook with proofing set to English, it will red-line the text, but I can then still skip whole words using CTRL-Arrow. But also Outlook ignores the proofing setting for a block of text in. Selecting a whole email, setting it to Dutch, then continuing to type inside that block will still mark the text as English.

I do not want to remove Dutch from all settings, as I do want to be able to use it once in a while.

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-04-29T09:46:46+00:00

    I have exactly the same issue, but with different language (Croatian).

    1. My keyboard is in Croatian (I want it to stay like that).
    2. My presentations are in English (I want them to be in English).
    3. Proofing languages are set to English default.
    4. Whenever I type, the proofing language changes to Croatia (I don't want that).

    So I have the same issue as PP marking the words wrong because the half of the word for example is English and half is Croatian.

    And I tried existing presentations and new ones, the same thing.

    Also, I tried on two different computers, the same thing happens.

    Really annoying.

    There has to be a way to fix it?

    For example, word works fine. It changes my proofing language to Croatian, but, if I change it to English default, the whole documents stays in English. That is the only thing I want.

    You would say simple but, I guess not for PowerPoint :(

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-02-17T08:02:08+00:00

    The problem is not fixed. I set the region to US, but it doesn't solve it.

    I checked what happens with new documents:

    • Empty document, just typing the sentence "What is the current setting?" in a content box, then checking the proofing language: English (Netherlands)
    • Empty document, typing two sentences and a single word as a bulleted list:
    1. Trying out language packs
    2. Powerpoint still making mistakes
    3. Language

    "Language" got marked as incorrect. Checking the proofing language, is was set to Dutch. I removed the line, then wrote it again. Again marked as incorrect, but this time proofing was set as English US. The "incorrect" marking is only beneath the "anguage", excluding the "L"., and suggests "Language" as replacement. So also here, Powerpoint is cutting up words without a good reason.

    I haven't installed other proofing languages yet.

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-02-27T13:16:37+00:00

    Each section of text contains a reference to the spell check language - the language can change within a textbox!

    The Real Lingo AddIn was written (by us) especially to do this (set everything and future text to a default language.) It is not free but as I mentioned earlier there is a free demo. Steve R has a similar AddIn.

    I agree that it's time MSFT fixed this but the problem has been there for a very long time so it might not be fixed any time soon.

    John Wilson's Real Lingo

    Steve Rindsberg's LanguageSelector

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-02-27T11:15:21+00:00

    The language setting is stored in each shape / texbox so if you are importing slides from elsewhere that may be the problem.

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  5. Anonymous
    2020-02-12T14:36:54+00:00

    Hi SJGT,

    I go through the post carefully. Per your description, It seems that you have marked all text as English but still give your Dutch as proof language. Here is some suggestion:

    1.       Update your Office to latest version in File>Account

    2.       Go to Control panel>Regions and Language> set the region as US.

    3.       It is possible that you use some Dutch styles therefore PowerPoint think you are typing Dutch.  check if there are any Dutch punctuation or style in your presentation.

    If suggestion above doesn’t help, could you please share information below with us for further troubleshooting?

    1.       What is your Office version? Please give a screenshot of your File>Account Page.

    2.       Does the issue happen on a newly created presentation?

    3.       Dose the issue happens on other proofing language? Such as switch to French.

    Regards,

    Clark

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