English Thesaurus (UK) on Word 2008

[RisingSun]

Hello, does anyone know to make the UK version the default Thesaurus on Word 08 proofing tools? I've changed settings, within documents and on defaults, to UK English but when I highlight a word and press alt/control/r it still comes up with suggestions from 'Thesaurus (USA)'.
I installed Office yesterday and already had one or two glitches with the normal template that I had to overcome - Word kept crashing.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Exactly *how* did you change the settings within documents and on
defaults? There's a lot of confusion about how to tell Word you are
using UK English--I have a feeling you may not have done it correctly,
as when I set it to UK English here, the Thesaurus tells me it is using
UK English.

You have to change the Language, rather like a font format. Select all,
go to Tools | Language--select UK, click Default--now does it work
properly in a new document?

 

[RisingSun]

Thanks.

I have used the Select all/Tools method you describe, as well as changing language settings through Preferences, and neither changes from the US Thesaurus.

I'm beginning to wonder whether the UK Thesaurus file installed correctly.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Well, language settings in preferences don't do a single thing. They are
totally irrelevant to this problem--in fact, there isn't really anything
in preferences that even *is* a language setting.

A couple more tests before deciding it is an installation problem. Put
the cursor in a word. Go to Tools | Language. Does English UK come up
already selected?

If English UK isn't already selected, then that's the cause of the problem.

If English UK is already selected, bring up the thesaurus--does it say
UK this time? If if doesn't, diagnostic tricks to help locate the cause
of the problem:

1) Log out of your user account, then hold down shift while logging back
in. If the problem disappears, it is probably due to some conflict with
the login items/utilities in your user account.

2) create a new user account in OS X and test in that one. If the
problem disappears, then the installation is fine but some user-specific
file has corrupted.

 

[RisingSun]

I cracked it.

I realised that the British flag had also disappeared from the top menu. So I went to Sys Prefs | International | Input and, sure enough, 'USA' was checked (it must have been a quirk of the installation).

Now I have my Union flag back and I have my UK Thesaurus present and correct too.

Thanks very much again for all your suggestions though.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Great--and thanks for sharing that the system settings affect
this--although my computer is set to US and I didn't have a problem
getting a UK thesaurus, but it may have been refusing to let you set the
default language to UK. I didn't test defaults.

 

[jacqui48]

Thanks for that. I have reinstated the Union Jack but Thesaurus still not offering options. Instead, it gives options of the chosen word under 'synonyms'.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

You need to state what version of Word you are using to get accurate
help. In addition, rather than reviving a thread that is almost 2 months
old, you would be better off posting a new question in which you give a
full description of the problem you are having.