word 2007 and grammar check

[Justin Jayjohn]

I have a user that is having issues with grammar check & word 2007.
She is having the issue related to contract documents she is to
prepare etc. Every time she runs spell check on one of these
documents, she is getting the message a language pack needs
installed. One time it might ask for french, another time brazil.
She gets these documents from several different users. I even loaded
one of the documents on my computer, ran spell check got the same
message. I also sent this document to the rest of my team, most people were
prompted for the brazil language pack. I originally tried removing the
"detect language
automatically" option that was checked. I have found out that I can
change this on one document. Another document can have this box
checked. I performed the following trouble shooting to this point:
-ran detect/repair
-ran chkdsk /f - to fix any file corruption
-defragged the hard drive
-installed office sp2 and updates
-completed reinstalled the entire Office 2007 suite

None of the above steps have worked to resolve this issue. Does
anyone have any other ideas of what to try or what might be causing
the issue?

 

[Peter T. Daniels]

1. Always keep "Detect language automatically" turned off. No one
knows what it actually detects, but it's not language.

2. Be sure the entire document you're spellchecking is in the Set
Language it's supposed to be in -- Ctrl-A, Set Language (Review tab,
third from left, bottom) to English (US) or whatever.

Note that if you import so much as a single character from another
document with a different Set Language, it will bring its Language
with it. Especially if you download stuff.

 

[Greg Maxey]

Justin,

The problem is mixed languages in the document. If those languages are not
enabled and available then you see those messages.

You can set the language to USEnglish or whatever by pressing CTRL+A, blah,
blah but that action only addresses the languages in the main text of the
troublesome document. While perhaps unlikely, the offending language set
could be in one of several other document layers (e.g., headers or footers,
textboxes, footnotes, etc.).

Then there is the possibility that you process hundereds or thousands of
these documents. The laborious process of setting the language manaully
could become very tiresome.

While scorned by some in this forum, you could always use a macro.

Sub SetLanguageNailMeetsTheHammer()
Dim oStoryRng As Word.Range
Dim bSetLangUS As Boolean
bSetLangUS = False
For Each oStoryRng In ActiveDocument.StoryRanges
Do
With oStoryRng
If .LanguageID = 9999999 Then
If MsgBox("This is a mixed language document." _
& vbCr + vbCr & " Do you want to set the language to US English?",
_
vbQuestion + vbYesNo, "Mixed Language Detected") = vbYes Then
bSetLangUS = True
Exit For
.LanguageID = wdEnglishUS
End If
End If
End With
Set oStoryRng = oStoryRng.NextStoryRange
Loop Until oStoryRng Is Nothing
Next oStoryRng
If bSetLangUS Then
For Each oStoryRng In ActiveDocument.StoryRanges
Do
oStoryRng.LanguageID = wdEnglishUS
Set oStoryRng = oStoryRng.NextStoryRange
Loop Until oStoryRng Is Nothing
Next oStoryRng
End If
End Sub

The name of the macro is abritary. You could run it on individual documents
or include the script in an AutoOpen macro stored in the template so it
would run automatically whenever a document is opened.

Need help with macros? See: http://www.gmayor.com/installing_macro.htm

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

FWIW, in the command "Set Language," "set" is a verb; you are setting the
desired language.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

1. Always keep "Detect language automatically" turned off. No one
knows what it actually detects, but it's not language.

2. Be sure the entire document you're spellchecking is in the Set
Language it's supposed to be in -- Ctrl-A, Set Language (Review tab,
third from left, bottom) to English (US) or whatever.

Note that if you import so much as a single character from another
document with a different Set Language, it will bring its Language
with it. Especially if you download stuff.

 

[Peter T. Daniels]

Ain't English great? You can adjectivize verbs and verb adjectives!
(And Word _still_ can't "detect language automatically.")

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I can't really fault Word for not doing a great job of detecting the
language automatically. It must surely require a fair-sized sample, given
the number of words that occur (not always with the same meaning) in more
than one language.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

Ain't English great? You can adjectivize verbs and verb adjectives!
(And Word _still_ can't "detect language automatically.")

 

[Justin Jayjohn]

All,

Thank you for the replies. At this point, all the documents are written in
English. The documents are large contracts (several pages....upwards of 100
+). I was wondering if some font in the document could be causing the
problem. Some of these documents could have been created with word 2003 then
opened with word 07 modified and resaved. We tried taking a document that
was word 03, copied pasted into new word 07. We saved the document then try
grammar check, got the same result. So how I can I get all our machines to
open these documents correctly.

 

[Justin Jayjohn]

All,

Thank you for the replies. At this point, all the documents are written in
English. The documents are large contracts (several pages....upwards of 100
+). I was wondering if some font in the document could be causing the
problem. Some of these documents could have been created with word 2003 then
opened with word 07 modified and resaved. We tried taking a document that
was word 03, copied pasted into new word 07. We saved the document then try
grammar check, got the same result. So how I can I get all our machines to
open these documents correctly.

 

[Justin Jayjohn]

All,

Thank you for the replies. At this point, all the documents are written in
English. The documents are large contracts (several pages....upwards of 100
+). I was wondering if some font in the document could be causing the
problem. Some of these documents could have been created with word 2003 then
opened with word 07 modified and resaved. We tried taking a document that
was word 03, copied pasted into new word 07. We saved the document then try
grammar check, got the same result. So how I can I get all our machines to
open these documents correctly.

 

[Justin Jayjohn]

All,

Thank you for the replies. At this point, all the documents are written in
English. The documents are large contracts (several pages....upwards of 100
+). I was wondering if some font in the document could be causing the
problem. Some of these documents could have been created with word 2003 then
opened with word 07 modified and resaved. We tried taking a document that
was word 03, copied pasted into new word 07. We saved the document then try
grammar check, got the same result. So how I can I get all our machines to
open these documents correctly.

 

[Peter T. Daniels]

Any linguist (as opposed to Artificial Intelligence folk!) will tell
you that fluent computer use of human language is decades, if not
centuries, away. The most unrealistic thing about *2001: A Space
Odyssey* was the conversing computer HAL -- but note that it never
occurred to Clarke & Kubrik that computers would be little boxes long
before 2001!

It's possible (not easy, but possible) to compose a passage that can
be read as either Latin or Italian. No matter how good Word's proofing
tools for those two languages are, what would it do?

 

[Peter T. Daniels]

I can tell you at least that it isn't the font (unless characters of
some non-Roman font that's associated with just one language have
somehow gotten in). If you type a Roman-alphabet letter with an accent
on it, even if it's associated with just one specific language (and
there aren't many of those!), Word won't assign a language to it.

A way to check if some errant language has been assigned to a bit of
text is to Find your base language (English (US) or whatever) -- Ctrl-
F, More > Format > Language -- click Find Next, and if the entire
document isn't selected, see what language it shows for the first
character after the end of the selection. Then that would be a clue to
where the other language came from.

 

[Bogey Man]

Any linguist (as opposed to Artificial Intelligence folk!) will tell
you that fluent computer use of human language is decades, if not
centuries, away. The most unrealistic thing about *2001: A Space
Odyssey* was the conversing computer HAL -- but note that it never
occurred to Clarke & Kubrik that computers would be little boxes long
before 2001!

It's possible (not easy, but possible) to compose a passage that can
be read as either Latin or Italian. No matter how good Word's proofing
tools for those two languages are, what would it do?

In addition to what has already been said, English isn't a "pure" language
in itself. It has several dialects where words have totally different
meanings depending upon usage from one dialect to another and from one
geographic region to another.

The best that you can do is to have proofing tools appropriate to the work
that you are doing (legal, medical, engineering etc.) Even then, grammar
checking will cause headaches. I would suggest as others have done; turn off
grammar checking.

 

[Justin Jayjohn]

Peter,

I tried your recommendations about see if some font within the document
could be a different language. I did the ctrl F and followed your
instructions. The entire did not highlight. It did highlight like a
paragraph at a time. I did not see anywhere, anything stating about what
language the font was. I was not sure if that meant all the font was
English. Did I do something incorrectly......

 

[Peter T. Daniels]

You can see the current Set Language in your status bar at the bottom
-- right-click on the status bar and turn on the Language option (9th
from the top).

Maybe the paragraph marks themselves are formatted with a different
Set Language?? Maybe there are some spaces at the ends of paragraphs
that are formatted with a different language??

(You do have Non-Printing Characters showing, don't you? Ctrl-
Shift-8.)

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I see you're choosing to ignore my advice about the syntax of "Set
Language." It is the same as "Set AutoShape Defaults," i.e., click this
button to set the defaults; use this dialog to set the desired language.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

You can see the current Set Language in your status bar at the bottom
-- right-click on the status bar and turn on the Language option (9th
from the top).

Maybe the paragraph marks themselves are formatted with a different
Set Language?? Maybe there are some spaces at the ends of paragraphs
that are formatted with a different language??

(You do have Non-Printing Characters showing, don't you? Ctrl-
Shift-8.)

 

[Greg Maxey]

That is not the only advice ignored (Sigh).

 

[Peter T. Daniels]

Once you've set the language, it becomes the set language -- you can
watch the pot, but "a watched pot never boils." It's just a quirk of
the word "set" and a few others that the past participle (adjectival)
form is the same as the basic verb form.

The actual language of the document (for instance, English) can differ
from the Set Language of the document -- and you might not notice
until you type quotation marks and get guillemets or a pair of commas
(French and German behavior respectively), or a (semi)colon and get a
nonbreaking space before it (French).

 

[Justin Jayjohn]

Peter,

I tried the steps you suggested. I did not see anything indicating the
language each paragraph is using. I did not have "non-printing" turned on.
I turned that on, I ran the ctrl F again. I still did not see anything
indicating the language. I did notice the document has "track changes"
turned on. I also noticed alot of words, sentences where "strikethrough" has
been used. The document also contains some charts, text boxes........

I have been researching this issue for several weeks now.......I appreciate,
any and all help to resolve this issue.

 

[Peter T. Daniels]

As I said in the last message,

Right-click on the status bar

Turn on "Language" in the status bar

do a search for a specific language

You will see that language named in the status bar when it Finds it

See what language it reports for the very next (unhighlighted)
character in the document

Track Changes shouldn't interfere with the language settings.