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Word Office 2019 keeps changing proofing language to English

Anonymous
2022-10-30T17:58:57+00:00

I am using Office 2019 on a Windows 11 laptop, and whenever I type a word / sentence in Word the proofing language gets changed to English. I need it to be Dutch (in most cases). What I have tried so far is:

  • Make sure Dutch is installed as proofing language
  • Options --> Language --> Set Dutch as preferred language, and move it up so it's at the top.
  • Select the whole document, and mark selected text as Dutch, uncheck 'Do not check spelling or grammer' and uncheck 'Detect language automatically'. Then I pressed 'set as default' and restarted Office.

None of the above solutions worked. When I select all the text (control - A) and change the language of the marked text to Dutch, the marked text is succesfully converted to Dutch, however when I type a single letter, the new line starts as English again. How can I keep word from defaulting back to English when I start typing?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-10-30T18:27:38+00:00

    Thank you for your reply

    I managed to fix the problem just now. The solution was not the settings in office, nor was it the display language in Windows. It was the input method. This was set to English. When I changed the input method to Dutch the proofing language nog longer defaults back to English in Word.

    To change the input method press windows key + space (keyboard layout shortcut)

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  1. Stefan Blom 340.3K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2022-10-30T18:07:02+00:00

    After you have changed the default, is the language still incorrect in new, blank documents (Ctrl+N)?

    If the language is incorrect in new documents, you haven't successfully changed the default. In most cases, you can fix this by making sure that the display language in Windows is the same as your desired default proofing language in Office.

    Existing documents must always be dealt with one by one. For example, modify the language of the Normal style. Often, you also have to select all the text and manually (re-)apply the correct language to the selection via the Language dialog box (Review tab > Language group > Language > Set Proofing Language).

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  1. Stefan Blom 340.3K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2022-10-30T18:36:52+00:00

    Thanks for the follow-up. I'm glad you got it sorted.

    Indeed, there are many factors at play here.

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