Excel for Mac (Office 365) refuses to use regional settings from Mac OS 14.1

Question

I want my Mac language to be US English, as that is what I am used to. I live in Denmark, so my regional settings, like thousand and decimal separators, date formats etc. are set differently. Excel for Mac (latest version, 16.79.1) does not seem to respect the regional settings from my Mac. Instead, it uses the Language, which is US English. For example, if I enter "5/7" in a cell - Excel interprets it as May 7. I want it to interpret it according to my regional settings, so 5/7 should be interpreted as 5th of July. Is it a bug in Excel for Mac, that it sets regional settings, based on Language, rather than the regional settings chosen in the operating system?

Answer 1

With the macOS regional setting "English (US)" the system and Excel don't agree on how to read the environment locale, and then Excel uses its defaults instead. With regional setting set to "English (UK)" the system is OK, as you have experienced.

Referring to this post, https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apple-releases-macos-sonoma-14-1.2408652/page-5?post=32666688#post-32666688, you can check your setting using the command

defaults read .GlobalPreferences AppleLocale

If the output is something messed up like en_US@rg=dkzzzz, you can override the setting with the command:

defaults write .GlobalPreferences AppleLocale en_DK

(assuming you want the English (US) - Danish combo indicated in your screenshot)

Answer 2

Thanks for the heads-up Hans. I did update the system and it lost the AppleLocale setting I'd made. I came back here to copy and paste the commands. I did so from my own post above, and noticed a small but important mistake in my post. I'd written:

write .GlobalPreferences AppleLocale en_DK

It should have been:

defaults write .GlobalPreferences AppleLocale en_DK

I edited and corrected my previous post.

Answer 3

just set your language to english UK for some reason US english does not follow regional settings

Answer 4

Hi again,

I'm sorry I wasn't able to help, unfortunately, I do not have any more troubleshooting to offer, there are knowledgeable experts on the platform and I hope someone else will take a look at your issue.

Thanks, Sola

Answer 5

Hi Olaf,

Thanks for contacting us and sorry for the inconveniences,

If Excel for Mac is not respecting your regional settings and is instead using the language setting, you might want to try the following steps:

1. **Check Excel Language Preferences:**
   • Open Excel.
   • Go to the "Excel" menu and select "Preferences."
   • Under "International," check the settings for "Region" and make sure it matches your desired regional settings.
2. **Mac System Preferences:**
   • Go to the Apple menu and select "System Preferences."
   • Click on "Language & Region."
   • Make sure your preferred region is selected, and check that the formats for dates, times, and numbers are set correctly.
3. **Excel Date Format:**
   • If Excel is not interpreting dates correctly, even after adjusting regional settings, you can manually format cells to the desired date format.
   • Select the cells, right-click, choose "Format Cells," and then select the "Date" category. Choose the desired format.
4. **Excel AutoCorrect:**
   • Excel has an AutoCorrect feature that might be affecting the interpretation of dates. Check if there are any auto-corrections set for dates.
   • Go to "Excel" > "Preferences" > "AutoCorrect" and review the settings.
5. **Update Excel:**
   • Ensure that you have the latest updates for Excel for Mac. Microsoft regularly releases updates that may address bugs and improve compatibility.

I hope this helps!

Regards, Sola