Automatic language detection doesn't work

Question

Hello,

I have a Mac device and Office 2016 installed on it with an Office 365 E3 subscription. The macOS is Sierra (version 10.12.2) and the Office 2016 version is 15.30 (170107). Officially, the language auto-detection works with these settings, but the auto-correct only works for the language the keyboard is set to. If the keyboard is set to US, it will only auto-correct in English. If the keyboard is set to German, it will only auto-correct the words in German.

I have the languages I want set up in Language & Region.

And I also have "Detect language automatically" enabled.

Is there anythig else I should check?

Thank you,

Paula

Answer 1

I understand... But this is not the issue of your original message :-) It has nothing to do with AutoCorrect.

The suggestions in that list are supplied from the Speller Proofing Tool based on Word's recognition of the Language attribute applied to the text. It is context sensitive & the program will use the appropriate lexicon on the fly [if available], both for automatic spell checking & the main Spelling & Grammar check.

The Detect language automatically checkbox is a recent addition to Word 2016. This is a feature which Word for Mac never has had in prior releases & I'm not certain that the necessary underpinnings have yet been brought to a functional level. The feature works fine in the Windows versions as well as in Word Online, but your conclusion about its failure in Mac Office 2016 appears to be accurate. I am easily able to reproduce the issue here based on your example as well as others.

Please use the ☺︎ at the right end of the Word Ribbon to report your findings to Microsoft. You won't get a personal reply, but the more negative feedback they receive the higher the issue is placed on the list of priorities. Hopefully it will be resolved by an update in the near future.

In the meanwhile, all I can suggest is that you continue to use traditional methods: switch keyboard input for anything other than your default language and/or select text & directly apply the appropriate Language. Another alternative may be to work in Word Online.

Answer 2

Bob has a good answer, but I would quibble with his assessment that automatic language detection works well in Windows. It's a feature that Microsoft has never gotten right and there are frequent recommendations in the Windows area to simply turn it off.

Answer 3

Hello Bob,

Please see example below. I wrote the first sentence in English and the second one in German. And it doesn't even recognize it's a different language (I did add a full stop at the end of the sentence). And it's only suggesting words in English.

Thanks,

Paula

Answer 4

Automatic Language detection pertains only to Spelling & Grammar. The Proofing Tools include Speller, Grammar, Thesaurus & Hyphenator [as available for each specific language]. Although it can work in conjunction with the Spelling & Grammar checker, AutoCorrect is not a Proofing Tool.