How do I change the menu bar language?

[dangoy]

How do I change the menu bar language? I just bought a Mac Mini in
Taipei and have MS Office 2004 installed. I had the system settings set
in English in the International Preferences in OS X Tiger. All the
other applications are in English but when I open any Office 2004
application the menu bar is still in Chinese. I have tried
Tools>Language set to English but to no avail. Please help!

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

I don't think I have a good answer for you...

In your Microsoft Office 2004 folder, in Additional Tools, you may find an
application named Microsoft Language Register. If you do, double-click it
and follow the instructions.

That may switch your user interface to English, but I do not think it will.
It would if you had purchased an English version of Microsoft Office.
However, I think you have the Chinese version, which won't switch.

Sorry: I think you have to purchase a licensed English version of Microsoft
Office.

There is a real problem selling software in that part of the world: people
make jokes that "If you produce a Chinese version, you only ever *sell* one
copy!" The level of piracy in that part of the world means that is very
nearly true. Walk the halls of any South-East-Asian company and chances are
80 to 90 per cent of the software you see in use has not been paid for.

Obviously few companies, including Microsoft, are going to make much of an
effort to sell the good stuff in that region while that practice continues.

It was a revelation to us in Australia when Microsoft enabled Product
Activation in Windows and Microsoft Office. The price of Windows XP fell
from $499 to $99. The price of Microsoft Office fell from $1,899 to
$179.95. Much more importantly, we were then able to get the "Single Code
Base" version of the products that they sell all over the world, including
the United States. Because now nearly every copy in use was paid for!

Don't confuse "single code base" with the "Universal Binary" that future Mac
products will appear in. The "single code base", or whatever they call it
this week, contains all languages and features and functions on a single
installation source disk set. The licence you buy determines how much of it
is enabled. One of the features is that you can switch from English to any
of 29 languages or back with a single keystroke. A "Universal Binary" in
Macintosh terms simply means the same program compiled to run on both the
Intel and PowerPC processors.

I guess that what I am really saying is that we won't have a good answer for
you until Microsoft brings Product Activation to the Macintosh platform.
Until they do that, they would be silly to provide the full versions of
Microsoft products on the Mac, because they're too easily pirated.

If we did get the full thing, we could choose to operate the base product in
the following 50 languages:
Arabic
Basque
Bulgarian
Catalan
Chinese (Simplified)
Chinese (Traditional)
Croatian
Czech
Danish
Dutch
Estonian
Finnish
French
Gaelic (Ireland)
Galician
German
Greek
Gujarati
Hebrew
Hindi
Hungarian
Icelandic
Indonesian
Italian
Japanese
Kannada
Korean
Latvian
Lithuanian
Marathi
Norwegian (Bokmål)
Norwegian (Nynorsk)
Polish
Portuguese (Brazil)
Portuguese (Portugal)
Punjabi
Romanian
Russian
Serbian (Latin)
Slovak
Slovenian
Spanish
Swedish
Tamil
Telugu
Thai
Turkish
Ukrainian
Vietnamese
Welsh

Something to look forward to for those of us in nations where English is
only "one" of the languages in common use

But we'll have to wait for Product Activation!

Sorry...

How do I change the menu bar language? I just bought a Mac Mini in
Taipei and have MS Office 2004 installed. I had the system settings set
in English in the International Preferences in OS X Tiger. All the
other applications are in English but when I open any Office 2004
application the menu bar is still in Chinese. I have tried
Tools>Language set to English but to no avail. Please help!

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[dangoy]

Thanks for the quick reply.
I tried looking of the MS Language Register in the Additional Tools
folder but couldn't find it. I only found Handheld Sync Installer and
Remove Office.
I got an English version of MS Office 2004 on other Mac Powerbook so I
tried an experiment. I first uninstalled the Chinese Office from my Mac
Mini and removed any files related to Office, then I installed my
English version of Office 2004. Then when I ran it, to my surprise the
menus are STILL in Chinese!!! Is there any hidden file that I forgot to
remove? I went to the Library folder and already removed any hint of
Microsoft or Office. I thought if I installed an English version the
menus would be in English but how come it's still in Chinese?

 

[Phillip M. Jones, CE.T.]

I don't think I have a good answer for you... -------------------------snip-------------------------


-------------------------snip-------------------------
But we'll have to wait for Product Activation!

Sorry...

With this product Activation. Does it become a major PIA to install on
two machines you physically own. Right Now The EULA (?) say you have to
right to install on One Desktop and One laptop You personally own so
long as they are not used together at same time on a network. (Now Why I
would want the ability run both on a network at the same time is beyond
me. As I can type with my right and left hand at the same time. And I
don't share my computers.

IF it become a hassle, I may have to forgo using Office. Paying for two
copies of the Full or Pro version would be unduly expensive for me.

Then what happens when I buy a new machine to replace another. Means
buying another Copy. Maybe I'll end up with the $999.00 software after
all ;-(

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[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Phillip:

With this product Activation. Does it become a major PIA to install on
two machines you physically own.

No. You just do both installs. The software is not going to check that you
physically "own" the machines, nor will it check that they are actually a
laptop and a desktop.

What it DOES check is that you install only TWICE. If you try to install a
third copy, it will refuse

Then what happens when I buy a new machine to replace another. Means
buying another Copy.

Again, no it does not. You uninstall from the first, then install on the
new machine. Provided you never have more than two copies installed, or
more than one copy active concurrently, you will never notice.

The whole process is so transparent that few users know it even exists. You
install the software as normal. When you start the first program in Office,
you get a prompt to say "would you like to activate?". Click "Yes", there's
a pause, and you get a dialog saying "Your product is now activated, would
you like to Register it?"

In the new versions about to come out, the process is even more automatic:
the installer checks for an active Internet connection: if it finds one, it
asks if you would like to activate as part of the installation. Say "Yes"
and you will never even see activation happening.

Registration is not mandatory, but it's a good idea: because if your
computer is subsequently stolen, you can ring Microsoft, they will have your
registration details on file and issue you you a new product key. When the
thief next tries to use your stolen computer, interesting things may happen
(to him...)

I think that the only difference Activation makes to LEGITIMATE users is
that when you replace the machine, you have to decide whether or not you
want to continue to use the software on it. If you want to use it, you
uninstall it from the old machine before you sell it. If you decide to sell
the software with the computer, you then need to provide the buyer with the
disks and the product key. You would then go and buy the latest version for
yourself.

Of course if you were sneaky like me, you would use the install disk from
the old machine to qualify you for an "Upgrade" version of the latest
software. That's half-price Take care to install the "Upgrade" version
BEFORE you hand over the installation disks for the old version

Maybe I'll end up with the $999.00 software after all ;-(

If you do, you didn't pay full price A full set of operating system,
office, and graphics software for a single machine in Australia is just
under $5,000.00

Cheers

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410