Default Dictionary

Question

I am based in Ireland, using a MAC, with Office version 16.10,  and my dictionary in word keeps defaulting to Scottish Gaelic every time I open a new document. I have gone into dictionaries, set English (UK) as my default but it still keeps going back as soon as I start typing. I have tried to find the Scottish Gaelic dictionary to delete it as an option but it's not there. My keyboard is set to British, my language & region on the mac is set to Ireland with English as the primary language.  To spell check documents I have to select all the text, change the dictionary to UK and run it that way, which is a pain, as I write for a living and this takes up more time, I would rather it's checking as I go along. Any suggestions how to fix this?

Answer 1

We found a solution, but it isn't perfect. Because I work in Gaelic a lot, I've been using the 'Irish - Extended' keyboard setting. Word maps this to the Scottish Gaelic proofing setting, for some reason (you'd think it would go to Irish).

The workaround appears to be to delete the Irish - Extended keyboard setting and use British (English) instead, or whatever else you need. The downside is that it is more cumbersome to get acute accents (now, alt-e + vowel instead of alt+vowel). Graves are the same (alt-` + vowel).

Answer 2

Hi Laura,

OK, my last Mac had function keys, in which case it would be Opt+F1.

Alternative method, select one of the words and under the Review tab > Language > Proofing Language, is English UK selected?

If not, go back into the document, select all text and go back to that proofing language dialog and select English UK.

If that does not fix the problem, if it keeps injecting Gaelic proofing, run the following macro:

Sub StyleEnglishUK()

'   Written 21 March 2018

'   Charles Kenyon

'   Intended to set all styles to English UK, proofing

'

    Dim aStyle As Style

    On Error Resume Next

    For Each aStyle In ActiveDocument.Styles

        aStyle.LanguageID = wdEnglishUK

        aStyle.NoProofing = False

    Next 'aStyle

'    ActiveDocument.UpdateStylesOnOpen = False ' For information on using this line, see:

'       http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/sharing/willmyformatchange.html

    On Error GoTo 0

End Sub

Installing Macros

If that does not do it, open your normal.dotm template and run the macro in that template.

How to Open the Normal Template

Answer 3

Hi Charles

thank you for the reply, and apologies for the late response. As I mentioned I'm on Mac, so I don't have the F1 option on my keyboard. 

All the best

Laura

Answer 4

In the meantime, here is the best source on the spell checker in Word.

http://wordfaqs.ssbarnhill.com/MasterSpellCheck...

Answer 5

Hello Laura,

This likely has to do with the proofing language setting. This is not an application-wide setting nor even a document setting. It is at the character level!

To see if this is the situation, please run a test for me.

Type something that is correct in UK English but shows up as misspelled.

Click in that word and then press Shift+F1.

There should be a language setting displayed in the Formatting pane.

What is it?

If it is not UK English, let me know and I'll tell you what to do.