Disable "Automatically switch keyboard to match language of surrounding text" option in Office 2016 Mac

Question

Hey... seems that some "smart guy" though that would be "smart" to switch language of word (and other application) in relation of the language of your keyboard input. 

Seems that office for windows has an option called "Automatically switch keyboard to match language of surrounding text" that change the language of your document when you switch your input keyboard. It also seems that option is by default ON in office for Mac and there it no way to turn it off. 

I don't really think this is smart or wise because... I'm Spanish, I bought my Mac on Spain a few years ago. It has a Spanish SHAPEd keyboard. I say shaped because... keyboards don't have language. Are just a device to input keys on a computer and those keys could form different words in different languages. It's true they are shaped with the keys more common use in some languages, but they don't have language. Anyhow... my problem is, I don't live anymore in Spain, I live in Finland, and I still use my computer, with my spanish shaped keyboard. However, I have my OSX in english and I mainly use english as my communication language and the language in my documents. With my spanish shaped keyboard on my mac I perfectly can write in english (and in spanish if it's needed, for example to write an email to my friends). So... why would I change the input language of my keyboard when with shape all the key correspond with the letters and sight they are labelled and I can find all the letters and sights I need to use in english??? Well seems that some ***** at microsoft thought that this would be useful because when you decide to write in other language... you usually change keyboards. OF COURSE, even more if you have a laptop... 

Is there anyway to override this? Is time I put as a default language English US it changes to Spanish... because it deduces that since I'm using a spanish keyboard and I have english (US) as my OSX language I would be writing in spanish, not in english. It doesn't happen if I choose English (CAN)... It keeps perfectly as default language for all the documents... but I really don't thing this is the point. 

So please fix this!!!! You did great work with Office 2016 for Mac, but this is ruining it!

Answer 1

Consider sending feedback to Microsoft.

How should I provide feedback for Office 2016 for Mac?

Answer 2

The link you included refers to Office 2016 for Windows. There's a frequent recommendation to turn off Detect language automatically in Windows, as it causes many problems. It's not even an option in OS X. Your keyboard has nothing to do with language switching. Nothing is "deducing" that you have a Spanish-made keyboard. 

My advice for people who use multiple languages is to create separate templates for each language, or at least separate styles in their Normal template for different languages. Word has only one Normal template and each style in that template has a language attribute. If the language attached to your styles is Spanish, then that language will always resurface.

But if you only need to use mainly one language, here's a basic outline of how to set it up in OS X and Word (you may have already completed these steps, I'm including them for other readers):

1. In the Finder, open System Preferences>Language & Region.
2. In the left pane are listed your preferred languages. The language at the top is your preferred language. If Spanish is primary, and you don't want it to be, drag it down to a lower position, so English is at the top. When you're finished, close the Preferences.
3. Look at the OS X menu bar. At the right end, you should see a flag, indicating the current language that OS X is set to. My installation shows a U.S. flag, for U.S. English.
4. Now open Word. Choose Tools>Language. Select the language you want to be the default while you are in Word, then click on the Default button. Word will ask whether you want to set the default language, click on Yes.

With the settings above, you should be set to type in U.S. English all day long. If you need to switch among languages, setup gets a little more complicated, but this should avoid your switches back to Spanish. Let me know how it works for you.

Answer 3

I've already done everything you way there, but have a template for each language. 

The solution in my case was to create a english language layout for my keyboard using ukelele and install it. Works great, but I really think it would be really unnecessary if word (and the other apps too) worked as it should be. The problem related to the keyboard is even worse in for example one note, where the language changes on each paragraph. As you can see in this thread of this very same community. 

In my opinion is a really big f*****p from Microsoft side, in the same manner are the webs that change the language depending in your location. Google does that, and although you can change it, it keeps that way for some web apps, like for example captchas. God damn it... I live in Finland, but I don't speak Finnish (or Swedish), why do you keep showing me info in Finnish?  

This is pretty similar issue, the app is inferring info that I should be able to be configured. Doing otherwise the app become really a pain in the **** to use. 

PS/ John, your solution about the language in the OSX... I already did that and besides you are mixing language of the OS and language of keyboard. Two different concepts for the OS. If you go to  System Preferences>Language & Regionas you told me. You can read. 

That could be different from the language the user use to write the input in the OS. What is more, Mac is usually multi language and you don't need to define it. That is set in the keyboard section of the System Settings. There you can define the input and that configuration is the one that changes the flags in the right side of the OSX menu bar. here you can se the flag in my menu bar... it's set by the custom keyboard I created with Ukulele. Taking spanish iso layout and changing on it the language from Spanish to English. 

(and yes... I put the flag upside down because I'm in distress) 

Then.... 

If I open office word in a blank document the preferred language is English US because of the keyboard. If I change it, it changes...

(Note: don't even need to go to system preferences to do that, you can do it using that icon on the menu bar. You can even do that using a keyboard combination. I used to do that when I was in my Finnish course and I wanted to write in Finnish using a layout in Finnish, just for the sake of having ä, ö and å more at hand, since the layout is the same that Spanish one and only change those keys.)

Now... if I try to override this... and change the default language in the document, or in the normal.dotm going to tools / language and setting there english US as default language, it doesn't change! if I do it, but I don't set as default, it changes but only for this document. ... If I trie to change directly the normal.dotm doesn't matter. And the problem is just between english us and spanish... I i define english (can) it sticks as default language perfectly or english (uk). 

For that reason I think that office has a glitch that arises when you are using a language A in the OS but with a keyboard language B and you want to use word (or other app) with that language A... something is telling the app that the language it should be using the keyboard one instead of the app / template defined one. Overriding even the normal.dotm template, because there is defined correctly. 

so... the app is f*****p! 

and as I told you in other apps like one note is even worse... luckily I don't use it. 

Edit: grammar.

Answer 4

Yeah .... I really thinking of do so!

Answer 5

Does Word switch to the US layout even when you ONLY have the Spanish ISO layout on the list in system prefs/keyboard/input sources?