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Intro

I've tried to find an answer, but I only find unsatisfying results - none of which explicitly solves my Problem, only workarounds.

For a different wording of my question, please scroll to the bottom.

This is a pretty good post about all workarounds: How can I prevent Word from resetting the language?

My Problem

When starting to write a new sentence, word letter in MS Word, it automatically sets the language to the current selected language of the Windows setting (bottom right in Taskbar).

More specifically if you open the dialog "Reveal Formatting" in Word, you can see, the the DEFAULT LANGUAGE SETTING of the document or the current STYLE is actually OVERRIDDEN with a "DIRECT FORMATTING". I'm speechless about how horrible that is. Word in generally is very messy with formatting ect., but with tediously configuring all STYLES to your needs, it somewhat gets manageable. HOWEVER this means, trying to avoid "DIRECT FORMATTING" AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE, using only pure styles for consistency. I don't want Word to at a "DIRECT FORMATTING" to any portion of text, EVER, especially NOT AUTOMATICALLY, without my EXPLICIT CONSENT.

I want to turn off the "feature" that Word is applying "DIRECT FORMATTING" to anything automatically - especially in regards of the Windows language setting. Any chance for that?

I want Word to ignore the system setting COMPLETELY AND FOREVER. When I tell Word to use a specific style it should only apply that style! If I want to add another language to a style, I will create another style, where I will explicitly set the language. I don't Word to mess up my document, by setting "DIRECT FORMATTING", if the system language changes for whatever reason.

Its even worse, when the system lang. is set to sth like FURTHAK. Word will also apply the Font "Segoe UI Historic". I WANT TO SET MY FONT MANUALLY ONLY!!!

I am not interested in workarounds such as:

  • keeping an eye on the system setting so it matches the documents' default setting (srsly? this creates MORE effort!!!)
  • selecting all text and setting the proofing language, all the time

EDIT:

Quotation-marks are also based on the system setting, and what's worse is, that THEY DON'T CHANGE WITH THE WORD PROOFING LANGUAGE, so if you accidentally switch your system language in windows, you might find some different, inconsistent, but hard to detect characters in your document.

Why is it so hard, that Word has a simple DOCUMENT-WIDE setting for language, that simply sticks, and is only overridden by styles which have an EXPLICIT LANGUAGE SETTING or MANUAL EXPLICIT DIRECT FORMATTING - Does it really have to be based on the windows setting? Is there no way of changing that dependency?

Edit 2:

Sorry if this sounds like a complaint (maybe it partially is) - but I thought I outlined clearly what I wished for - and the question is, if there is any way of achieving this, if there is an option I missed... which sadly might simply be not the case.

Trying to word it differently for clarification:

  • Is there any way to setup Word, so it does ignore the system language setting (completely and always)?
  • Is there any way to prevent Word from adding "DIRECT FORMATTING" of any kind to any portion of text AUTOMATICALLY, whatsoever. So that "DIRECT FORMATTING" is only ever applied when the user explicitly for example clicks the "bold" button on the ribbon menu - but never ever automatically (like when changing system language and then simply start typing anywhere in Word) ? I would like to know if there is any setting, so that, when I simply type in Word, that ONLY THE PURE STYLE I SELECTED FOR THAT PARAGRAPH is applied to the text AND NO "DIRECT FORMATTING", especially no AUTOMATIC "DIRECT FORMATTING", which I did not even choose through any action inside Word (like pressing on the "bold" button)...?
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  • 1
    Please clarify your specific problem or provide additional details to highlight exactly what you need. As it's currently written, it's hard to tell exactly what you're asking.
    – Community Bot
    Commented Mar 9, 2022 at 12:26
  • 1
    Word does not have a document level setting for language. Period. If you want to say that it should, fine, but that is not a question; it is a complaint and this is not the place for it. support.microsoft.com/office/… superuser.com/help/on-topic
    – Charles Kenyon
    Commented Mar 9, 2022 at 13:20
  • I do not know if you went to my Article on the Microsoft site. answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/… The answer you linked took parts from that but is not the full information.
    – Charles Kenyon
    Commented Mar 9, 2022 at 13:27
  • @CharlesKenyon Yeah sorry, I can see how this question sounds a bit like a complaint, but I honestly would like to know the answer to that - or at least - that there is no possible way of doing that. You comment seems to state that, if so, I invite you to give that as answer. I would argue, that if the question is seeking a specific option/setting/setup, which does not exist or is impossible to achieve than this is also a valid answer. So thanks for your comment.
    – somedotnetguy
    Commented Mar 9, 2022 at 13:35
  • @CharlesKenyon Yes, I also skimmed the link, but for me, those solutions seem all to be work-arounds for the stated Problem, and generally explaining the language settings in Word. As mentioned, I don't want to use additional effort, complexity, macros and so on, rather the contrary.
    – somedotnetguy
    Commented Mar 9, 2022 at 13:38

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
0

There is no way for the user to change Word to do what you want.

You asked for a direct statement. This is it.

You can leave feedback for Microsoft to try to get them to change this.

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