Writing in other languages in word

Who now is not familiar with the Microsoft Word application. That’s the first thing that we learn on the computer. Documents, thesis, reports, scripts everything that you need a softcopy of is written in MS Word. Microsoft word is not just a word-processing application. It is much more. You can even call it a graphical word processing software. Bear with me to find out about Writing in Other Languages in Microsoft Word.

Here’s a list of activities possible on MS Word

• Spelling and Grammer checker, word count (this also counts letters and lines)

• Speech Recognition

• Inserts pictures in documents

• Web pages, graphs, etc.

• Tables

• Huge dictionary

• Prints in different ways

• Many o many language packs

You can belong to any region of the world, speak any language of the world, you can still use this mighty piece of software. Word package comes with an option, you can install, the MS word language packs and use it two ways.

OFFICE DISPLAY LANGUAGE

You can change the language of buttons, controls, and the ribbon of MS Word. But this doesn’t affect the authoring language of the editor.

OFFICE AUTHORING LANGUAGES AND PROOFING

Changing the authoring language online changes the language that you write in and not the display language of the software

How to Write in Other Languages in Microsoft Word

Step-by-Step Tutorial

1. Go to Microsoft Word.

2. Click on “File”

3. Click on “Options”

4. Hit “Language”

5. Set the office display language. And click “Set as preferred”

6. Change the authoring and proofing language.

7. Add the language, if your preferred language is not available.

8. Click on “Proofing available”.

9. Now click “Download”

10. Let it install, restart MS Word, and repeat the above steps.

That’s all folks.

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Have a Word document in a language you don’t understand? Here’s how to translate it easily.

Can’t read a Word document because it’s in a foreign language? Fortunately, there’s an option to translate your documents (or selected text) without even leaving the Word app.

We’ll cover some of the ways to translate your Word documents into various languages. A couple of these methods use the Word app, while others use online services to translate your document.

1. How to Translate Selected Text in Word

If you’re only looking to translate certain text or parts of your Word document, you can take advantage of a Word feature that translates only the selected word or text block. This won’t touch any other parts of the document.

You can access this selective translation feature by doing the following:

1. Launch your document in Microsoft Word.
2. Find the text you want to translate in your document and highlight it using your cursor.
3. Switch to the Review tab at the top of your screen. Here, select Language then click Translate, followed by Translate Selection.
   
4. A new pane with your translations will open on the right side of the screen. In most cases, Word can detect your source language, so all you need to do is select the target language.
5. Once your text is translated and you’re happy with it, click Insert to add the translated text into your document.
   

At the bottom of the translation pane, you can view more details about your selected text and words. This includes the definition of the word means and its part of speech.

When you’ve finished translating your text, click X in the translation pane to close it and get back to your document.

2. How to Translate a Whole Document in Word

If you’re looking to translate your entire Word document to another language, there’s a feature for that as well. This doesn’t require you to select any anything in your document; it takes the contents and translates them to your chosen language.

A great aspect of this Word feature is that it won’t overwrite your original document. It stays as-is, while Word creates a new document for your translated version. This makes sure you preserve the original file.

You can utilize the full document translation feature in Word as follows:

1. Open your document with Word.
2. Click the Review tab at the top, choose Language, select Translate, and click Translate Document.
   
3. On the right-side pane, select the source and target language for your document. Then click on Translate to start translating your document.
   
4. Word will create and open a new document with your translated text in it. You can save this document by clicking the save icon as normal.

3. How to Use Google Docs to Translate a Word Document

While Google Docs is a separate office suite, you can use it to open and work with your Word documents too. Google Docs has a translation feature that you can use with uploaded Word files.

This basically uploads your Word document to Google Docs, translates the text, and lets you save the translated version to your computer. You can do this as follows:

1. Open a new tab in your browser and head over toGoogle Drive. This is where you upload documents to edit them in Google Docs.
2. Click New followed by File upload and select your Word document.
   
3. Right-click on your document in Google Drive and select Open with, followed by Google Docs.
4. When the document opens in the editor, click the File menu and choose Save as Google Docs. You need to do this because Google Docs can’t directly translate Word documents.
   
5. A new Google Docs file will open with your Word document’s content in it. To translate this, click the Tools menu at the top and choose Translate document.
   
6. Enter a name for your new translated document, choose the target language from the dropdown menu, and click Translate.
   
7. Your translated document will open in a new tab. To save it as a Word document, click the File menu and select Download, followed by Microsoft Word.

4. Use Online Translators to Translate a Word Document

If you aren’t happy with Word’s translation feature or want a second opinion, you have several online tools to translate your Word document from one language to another.

Before you use these services, keep in mind that not all of them will preserve your document’s formatting. If that doesn’t bother you, here are two online translation services you can use for your Word document:

1. Google Translate

Google Translate is arguably the best free translator available, and offers many languages to choose from. Unlike other Google services, you don’t need a Google account to use this translation feature.

Here’s how you use it for your Word documents:

1. Copy the text that you want to translate from your Word document.
2. Head to the Google Translate website in your browser.
3. Paste the text in the box on the left and select the source language. If you aren’t sure, click Detect Language and Google Translate will detect it for you.
   
4. Choose the target language on the right box and your translation will instantly appear in the box.
   
5. Copy the content from the box on the right and paste it into your Word document.

Your Word document is now translated.

2. Online Doc Translator

Unlike Google Translate, Online Doc Translator doesn’t require you to manually copy text from your document for translation. You can upload your entire Word document to translate it to your chosen language.

The service uses Google Translate to do the task, so you know that you’ll get a high-quality translation for your document. It works as follows:

1. Open the Online Doc Translator site in your browser.
2. Click Upload file and upload your Word document.
3. Select the source and target languages. Then click Translate.
   
4. Click Download your translated document to download your Word document.

Translating a Word Document in a Few Clicks

Sometimes, you may come across Word documents that aren’t in a language you know. For those scenarios, you have both built-in and external ways to translate your Word documents. Try the best one for your needs, and you’ll have a version of your document that’s readable to you.

The automatic spellchecker in Microsoft Word is far from perfect, but it can be useful for spotting mistakes in your written work. First, though, you’ll need to know how to change the language settings.

This is vital because even regional variations of English can differ in spelling, which means the automatic spellchecker will miss mistakes if the wrong settings are used. Luckily, changing the language in Microsoft Word is a quick and simple process.

Changing Language Settings

There are two main ways to set the language of a new document in Microsoft Word. The first is to use the “Review” tab on the main ribbon:

1. Go to the “Review” tab and find the “Language” section
2. Click on “Language” and select “Set Proofing Language…”
3. Choose the language required in your document from the new window and click “OK”

The second option is possibly even simpler:

1. Click on the language section of the blue bar at the bottom of your document (this will display the current language settings by default)
2. In the new window, select your chosen language and click “OK”

Either approach will ensure the spellchecker looks for spellings specific to your region. For American English, the correct option is “English (United States).” If you click “Set as Default,” the same settings will be applied to all new documents.

Applying a New Language to Existing Text

If you’re applying new language settings to an existing document rather than starting from scratch, you’ll need to select the text you want to modify first.

You can do this by selecting the passages you want to check and using the steps outlined above to pick a new proofing language. This also allows you to use different language settings in different parts of the same document, if required.

Alternatively, you can quickly select all of the text in a document using “Ctrl + A” (or “Cmd + A” on Mac computers), then apply a new language as described above.

Comments, Headers and Footnotes

For reasons beyond the comprehension of mortal minds, Microsoft treats the language options for comments, headers and footnotes as separate from the main text in your document.

If you’re using any of these features, you’ll need to check that the language settings are consistent with the rest of your document. You can do this either by selecting the relevant text and using the process described above, or by following these steps:

1. Go to “Styles” and right click the style you want to update (e.g., “Header”)
2. In the dropdown menu, click “Modify…” to open a new window
3. In this menu, click “Format” in the bottom left and select “Language”
4. Pick the language required and click “OK”

This will ensure consistency between different parts of the document in question, which is especially important if your paper includes extensive footnotes.

This article tells you how to change the language of your document in Word 2007, 2010 or 2013.

Why would I want to change the language of my Word document?

The language that is set for your Word document sets the language in which the spelling and grammar checks work. If you are working, say, at a university that uses UK English, and you use a version of Word that’s set for US English, when you run a spell check (or if you ask Word to highlight errors as you go along), the spelling will default to American English. You will submit your document in the incorrect version of the language. This can really matter if you’re instructed to use one particular version, and will matter more as you move into submitting articles for journals (which may specify either version of English) or working for a company that uses British or American spelling as standard.

If you’re working in the field of localisation, or even just, as I used to, writing documents for the US and UK markets simultaneously, making sure that the language set for your document matches the language you’re working in means that you can run final checks and make sure that you’re using the appropriate spelling.

If your document has come from another country which uses a language other than English, for example if you’re working on a document prepared by a translator working out of their own language, you really need to change the language to English before you start editing it, or when you run a final spell check, every word will be highlighted and confusion will ensue.

So it’s important to make sure that the language of your document matches the language in which you wish to work. I receive many documents to proofread which are set for US English but are for a student at a UK university – a quick set of actions is all that it takes, but I fear that students will be penalised if they use the inappropriate spellings for the context.

How do I view and change the language in my document?

In Word, the language that is set for your document should appear in the lower status bar of your document:

From here, you can easily change the language of selected text or the whole document (see below). But first we’ll look at how to add this useful display if it’s not showing.

How do I make the language display on my status bar?

If the language isn’t showing on your status bar and you want to see it there, right-click anywhere on the lower status bar. A menu should appear with lots of options to tick. Any item that is ticked will appear on the status bar – this is also useful if you want to view your word count there.

Click on Language or tick the tick-box next to it, and your language will appear for ever more in the bottom status bar.

This works exactly the same for Word 2007, 2010 and 2013.

How do I change the language using the status bar display?

First you need to highlight the text whose language you want to change.

You might want to highlight parts of the document (for example if it’s a dual translation in two languages and you just want to set one to UK English, or it’s a localisation and you just want to change one column of a two-column original and target language table), keeping the control key pressed down if you want to select several individual blocks of text.

If you want to change the language of the whole document, go to the Home tab and choose Select to the very right of the tab, then Select All:

(or you might press the Select All button on your Quick Access Toolbar if you’ve added it there (marked with an arrow on the screenshot above) – see my article on Adding Buttons to the QAT if you need to know how to do that).

Once you’ve highlighted the text for which you want to set the language, click on the language display in the bottom status bar and choose your language:

Note: Do not check spelling or grammar has a blue square next to it. Click in this square twice so that first a tick, then nothing, appears in the square.

Now click on OK. Your language will have changed to the language you selected.

This works exactly the same for Word 2007, 2010 and 2013.

How do I change the language using the menus in the ribbon?

If you don’t choose to display the language in the lower status bar, you can access it via the menus in the ribbon at the top of the screen instead. This works slightly differently in Word 2007, 2010 and 2013, so I’ll show you screenshots of all three.

In Word 2007, choose the Review tab and then Set Language in the Proofing section:

In Word 2010, choose the Review tab, then the Language button in the Language section, and click Set Proofing Language:

In Word 2013, again, choose the Review tab, Language section, Language button and Set Proofing Language:

For Word 2007, 2010 and 2013, once you’ve clicked on the relevant button, you will see the dialogue box for changing the language: select your language, remembering to click the blue square next to Do not check spelling and grammar once, twice, so there’s a tick then nothing:

How do I make the language appear in the lower status bar of my document?

You may find yourself unable to display the language in the lower status bar, however much you right click and tell Word to display it. Please pop over to this article if you’re having this problem, where you will find screen prints that will walk you through the process.

How do I change the language in my comments balloons?

You may find that the language in your comments balloons remains the original language of the document. If you need to change the language in your comments, see this article.

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In this article, I’ve shown you how to change the language of your Word document. If you have found this useful, please leave a comment and click on the sharing buttons below. Thank you!

This is part of my series on how to avoid time-consuming “short cuts” and use Word in the right way to maximise your time and improve the look of your documents.

Related posts on this blog:

How to change the language of comments

Please note, these hints work with versions of Microsoft Word currently in use – Word 2007, Word 2010 and Word 2013, all for PC. Mac compatible versions of Word should have similar options. Always save a copy of your document before manipulating it. I bear no responsibility for any pickles you might get yourself into!

Find all the short cuts here …