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Problem With Detect Language Automatically

Anonymous
2020-12-26T13:17:21+00:00

Dears,

I am writing some kind of essay in Indonesian in Microsoft Word. Many of the words and clauses are in English. So I use multiple language proofing and enable "detect language automatically". But so far I wasn't able to observe the feature working. When I type a new English word, Word doesn't detect it. Instead, it just marks with a red underline. To check if it's just a quirk in a particular document, I made a new document and paste some Indonesian sentences while using US keyboard languange setting and vice versa. I waited a while but the proofing language doesn't automatically detect it.

How to resolve this, so that it will detect different languages automatically? Am I missing something here, or that's not how "detect language automatically" works?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-12-27T11:30:56+00:00

    I've already included the screenshot that shows I have both of the languages downloaded and installed--green checklist means installed. So I guess that's not helpful?

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-12-27T11:25:15+00:00

    Thanks for the recommendation. I already did that. But it was a pain. That is the very reason I'm desperately searching on how to make this elusive feature works and end up here.

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  3. Stefan Blom 342.1K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2020-12-26T17:44:47+00:00

    "Detect language automatically" isn't something that you really want to rely on. As you have noticed, the option isn't very clever. Sometimes it incorrectly switches the language and sometimes it fails to recognize a new language, as you have noticed.

    I recommend that you use different paragraph or character styles for text in Indonesian and text in English. Apply the styles manually to text paragraphs.

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  4. Stefan Blom 342.1K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2020-12-27T12:43:46+00:00

    Thanks for the recommendation. I already did that. But it was a pain. That is the very reason I'm desperately searching on how to make this elusive feature works and end up here.

    Since you are using styles, you have already set this up the best way. As I wrote, the "Detect language automatically" option isn't reliable. In addition, when you explicitly apply styles, you stay in control over the formatting.

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  5. Mr. Trust_A 4,820 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2020-12-26T14:07:48+00:00

    Hi Nedi,

    My name is Trust. Am just a regular Microsoft user like you.

    According to this article, theDetect language automatically option, available in Word and Outlook on Windows, detects the language that you are typing and automatically enables the proofing tools for that language. If you don't have that language already installed you will need to download the free Language Accessory Pack. See Language Accessory Pack for Office.

    If you find this info helpful, please kindly mark or upvote.

    Kind regards,

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