Spelling and grammar on non-english language...

[Andrey_Kazak]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

Greetings!

I've changed Language of my document to Russian and Spelling and grammar function stopped working. Every word either in English or Russian, correct or incorrect, is treated by Word as correct.

Is this normal behavior?

Can I assign non-English language to a document and force Word to do spell checking using custom dictionary?

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Yes, that is normal behavior, because you assigned a language Word
doesn't know anything about, so it cannot mark anything as wrong. There
are no Russian proofing tools in MacWord.

Maybe the custom dictionary thing will work--theoretically it ought to,
but I don't know that anyone has tested it. See "My Language Isn't
Supported" on this page:
http://word.mvps.org/Mac/Languages.html
Let us know how it works.

Now, you should be able to mix text tagged as English and tagged as
Russian, and have Word check the English sections and ignore the Russian
sections. This does require specifically marking all text (though there
are ways to make this speedy). *How* did you change the Language?
(Select Text, Tools | Language) If you changed the entire document to
Russian, then even if it is English, Word thinks it's Russian and won't
do anything with it (note: WinWord has automatic language detection so
works differently in this situation, I believe. MacWord does not have
automatic language detection).

 

[Andrey_Kazak]

Now, you should be able to mix text tagged as English and tagged as

Russian, and have Word check the English sections and ignore the Russian
sections. This does require specifically marking all text (though there
are ways to make this speedy). *How* did you change the Language?
(Select Text, Tools | Language) If you changed the entire document to
Russian, then even if it is English, Word thinks it's Russian and won't
do anything with it (note: WinWord has automatic language detection so
works differently in this situation, I believe. MacWord does not have
automatic language detection).

As I see Word 2008 has an ability to auto detect Language of typed text. I made the following steps:

1) In (Tools | Language) menu selected "English (US)" as (Default...);
2) Closed all documents and created a new one;
3) Typed one line of text in English with words of both correct and incorrect spelling;
4) Typed one line of text in Russian with words of both correct and incorrect spelling;

Word 2008 highlighted only words in English with incorrect spelling.
When I select the second line with Russian text and go to (Tools | Language) the "Russian" language is highlighted.

So Word 2008 automatically detects when user types text in different language and switches the text Language property to appropriate value.

Maybe the custom dictionary thing will work--theoretically it ought to,
but I don't know that anyone has tested it. See "My Language Isn't
Supported" on this page:
<http://word.mvps.org/Mac/Languages.html>
Let us know how it works.

Now I do the following:

1) Select the second line with Russian text;
2) Go to (Tools | Language) and change selection from "Russian" to "English (US)";

Now all word in Russian from second line are highlighted as incorrectly spelled by Word 2008. When I try to add one of them to the dictionary using contextual menu I get an error message:

"The word was not added to the custom dictionary. The word you want to add might contain non-roman characters, or the custom dictionary might be full."

Any suggestions or ideas?

 

[Andrey_Kazak]

I also figured out that Word 2008 works with and stores custom dictionaries ONLY in plain text files with "Western (Mac OS Roman)" encoding.
Any attempt to change encoding of original custom dictionary file in order to add wordlist in non-English language fails...

So one cannot even add a word in non-English language to a custom dictionary!

Any ideas?

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

I also figured out that Word 2008 works with and stores custom
dictionaries ONLY in plain text files with "Western (Mac OS Roman)"
encoding. Any attempt to change encoding of original custom dictionary
file in order to add wordlist in non-English language fails...

Indeed. The file usually begins with a country code that defines how it
is used for Word. There is currently a nasty issue (IMVHO) where you
cannot enter any word with Unicode characters in a dictionary.
I add a lot of scientific words to my English dictionary for instance
and I can't enter any word containing a Greek letter.

So one cannot even add a word in non-English language to a custom
dictionary!

You can, as long as they're not using Unicode characters. You are
restricted to extended ASCII. It's a REAL pain and I hope they'll fix
this soon,

Corentin

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

As I see Word 2008 has an ability to auto detect Language of typed text. I made the following steps:

1) In (Tools | Language) menu selected "English (US)" as (Default...);
2) Closed all documents and created a new one;
3) Typed one line of text in English with words of both correct and incorrect spelling;
4) Typed one line of text in Russian with words of both correct and incorrect spelling;

Word 2008 highlighted only words in English with incorrect spelling.
When I select the second line with Russian text and go to (Tools | Language) the "Russian" language is highlighted.

So Word 2008 automatically detects when user types text in different language and switches the text Language property to appropriate value.

Sorry, then, sort of, I guess. Thanks for that experiment. I don't think
Word 2008 has auto language detection as it operates in WinWord, but I
think it is probably applying language to go with the font/alphabet you
are using (so it may auto-detect Russian but not French). Though I'm
not 100% sure, especially as I don't use WinWord, and especially as the
interaction of font/keyboard/language in Word 2008 is extremely
confusing and frequently annoying.

Daiya

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Sorry, I had not realized the custom dic in Word 2008 was not Unicode
(though now that I think about it, maybe Corentin has mentioned that and
I didn't put it together). I will update the article soon. Thanks much
for the report, Andrey.

 

[Andrey_Kazak]

I've just sent the message you MacBU by using Help> Send Feedback.
Could you do the same please?

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Sorry, I had not realized the custom dic in Word 2008 was not Unicode
(though now that I think about it, maybe Corentin has mentioned that and
I didn't put it together). I will update the article soon. Thanks much
for the report, Andrey.

It definitively is a bug though and it only affects Office 2008 as far
as I can tell.
That might also be the source of corruption of a lot of custom
dictionaries in the migration from 2004 to 2008 now that I think about
it.....


Corentin

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

I've just sent the message you MacBU by using Help> Send Feedback.
Could you do the same please?

Well believe me, I reported the issue as well a Loooonnnngggg time ago,

Corentin