working with 2 or more languages

[Alex]

I frequently work with BOTH French and English language documents. The
current language bar would is pointless because GB and FR keyboards have
different layouts. I only have a GB keyboard.

To switch language (for spell-check) is a nightmare: I have to select Tools
-> Language -> Set Language -> and scroll ALL the way down to French. When
selecting a language this way, what interest do I have in seeing all the
other languages listed before 'French' if they are not installed (and never
used)??

I have to do this 3 times a day (unless I leave an office application open).

Word does recognise languages automatically... but has a nervous breakdown
when working on a document containing 2 or more languages.

SUGGESTION:
Office 2007 should have a language toolbar amongst the standard, formatting,
tables and borders, etc. with a quick drop-down menu where one can chose
pre-selected languages.

In my case, a toolbar with French, Spanish and English. Voila!

----------------
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Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow this
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http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...0989b2&dg=microsoft.public.word.docmanagement

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Once you have used more than one language in a document, you can right-click
and Language will be on the shortcut menu, with a flyout containing the
languages in current use in the document.

I frequently work with BOTH French and English language documents. The
current language bar would is pointless because GB and FR keyboards have
different layouts. I only have a GB keyboard.

To switch language (for spell-check) is a nightmare: I have to select Tools
-> Language -> Set Language -> and scroll ALL the way down to French. When
selecting a language this way, what interest do I have in seeing all the
other languages listed before 'French' if they are not installed (and never
used)??

I have to do this 3 times a day (unless I leave an office application open).

Word does recognise languages automatically... but has a nervous breakdown
when working on a document containing 2 or more languages.

SUGGESTION:
Office 2007 should have a language toolbar amongst the standard, formatting,
tables and borders, etc. with a quick drop-down menu where one can chose
pre-selected languages.

In my case, a toolbar with French, Spanish and English. Voila!

----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...0989b2&dg=microsoft.public.word.docmanagement

 

[Alex]

Just noticed it is possible by customising the toolbar. Very useful, I've
added the language pull-down menu to the formatting bar and the email bar.

However, I still don't need the list of all the other languages in the
world. I only need those installed, in my case French, English and Spanish.
So why list these other ones?

Again, I know that if I leave office running, and select French or Spanish
once, then they get added to the beginning of the list. But the list is still
pointless and slows down the workflow.

 

[Patrick Schmid]

Hi Alex,

The current language bar feature is actually adequate for your needs.
However, you need to change a few settings.
Go into Control Panel, Regional and Language Options, Languages,
Details. Then remove French and Spanish (your non default languages).
Then add them again. However, in this case when you click add, make sure
to set the Keyboard layout/IME checkbox and set the keyboard layout to
GB (more appropriately United Kingdom or United Kingdom Extend. Check
which keyboard layout is currently associated with your GB input
language). In essence, you are adding French as input language with the
GB keyboard layout. Now when you switch between input languages, the
keyboard layout stays the same, but the input language changes
appropriately which is exactly what you are looking for.

Patrick Schmid

 

[Alex]

Thanks Suzanne,

Your method works, but only on a per-word basis. Useful to know if you use
the odd word such as risqué in an English document.

But I cannot select a whole French paragraph, right click, and define it as
French, because in this case, the 'Language' option is missing.

Anyway, I have found a way to add a custom language pull-down box to
tollbars (posted in this discussion). But again, I have a list of all
non-installed languages, which isn't productive or useful at all. It would be
similar to adding the hundreds of MS products to your Start menu, but then
only being able to click on the ones installed.

 

[Alex]

Thanks Patrick,

I'll test that out. I've disabled the language bar because I never thought
it would suit my needs.

Two questions though:

1) would I have to constantly re-select language options if I skip from one
word window to another (for e.g. having two documents open for a translation,
one in french, one in english)

2) same as above, but with 1 bi-lingual document open (in this case, I would
still need to define which paragraphs/section/pages are in English, and which
are in Spanish, using Word's language settings?

Thanks!

 

[Patrick Schmid]

Hi Alex,

Regarding 2: no. Word (and all other Office programs) use by default the
input language selected in Windows. So if you write a paragraph with
English set as your input language, Word will treat it as English. If
you write another paragraph in Spanish, Word will treat it as Spanish.
When you later just put the cursor on the top of your document and then
push the cursor down button, you'll see how the active language changes.
You won't need to change the input language for editing an existing
paragraph, as Word will use the language of existing text when you edit
it by default, hence ignoring the Windows input language in that case.
Regarding 1: yes and no. The windows input language will be identical
for all Word windows open, so yes you need to skip. However, the same
rule as I mentioned for 2 applies in this scenario as well.

The most important thing you want to make sure is to start off a
sentence in a paragraph with the correct input language. To switch
quickly between languages, you can use the default ctrl-shift keyboard
combination. Or, in the same control panel item I pointed out to you,
you can assign keyboard shortcuts to each language. So you can go to
your target language with just one keyboard shortcut, making this a
rather fast process.

The Windows input language is the only way to tell Word which language
to use before starting to type. All other methods (automatic detection
of language, setting the language within Word) are designed to be used
after you typed text. Btw, the language bar is a Windows, not an Office
feature now.

Patrick Schmid

 

[Alex]

Ok, tried out the language bar. I think I'll stick with the pull-down menu I
added in Word.

The language bar is useful when creating a new document: simply select a
language from the bar, and the document's language settings switches to that
set in the language bar. Useful.

Unfortunately, this works on a per-document basis, not on a multi-language
document, where the previous method of selecting text, then
tools->language->... etc. is necessary.

Thanks for your help!

Microsoft: Please could you remove all the non-installed languages, and put
them in some distant office preferences dialogue box, possibly with a link to
microsoft.com with options to purchase further language packs. But PLEASE,
NOT on the front-end where people simply want to switch languages without
fuss and scrolling through thousands!

 

[Opinicus]

1) would I have to constantly re-select language options if I skip from
one
word window to another (for e.g. having two documents open for a
translation,
one in french, one in english)

No. By the way, here's a tip: Instead of working with two open documents,
open a third document and create a two-column table. Copy and paste the
source text into one column (I use the left) and you can enter the
translated text in the other (the right in my case.) You set the language of
the source side to (in your case) French and that of the target side to
English. If you copy text from the source side and paste it directly into
the target side it will retain the language information but it's best to do
the pasting before a blank carriage return (preferably two). Once the
langauge bar has been installed you can switch between keyboard languages by
pressing left shift+left alt. Word picks up the current input language and
the text you enter from that point on will be tagged as being in that
language.

2) same as above, but with 1 bi-lingual document open (in this case, I
would
still need to define which paragraphs/section/pages are in English, and
which
are in Spanish, using Word's language settings?

Yes, but if you're working with whole paragraphs it's a fairly easy thing to
do. If you turn on the "Formatting" toolbar it's even easier as there's a
"Language" drop-down menu on it. You define the paragraph twice by
double-clicking on it then choose the language you want it to be in the
menu.

--
Bob
http://www.kanyak.comy the way, if you're presented with a whole list of
languages rather than the one you want, you don't need to scroll down
through it. Just type the first letter of the name of the language and
you'll magically be taken to it. (Or one close to it.)

 

[Alex]

Thanks Opinicus,

I will have another go at the language bar, and experiment with it,
especially after Patrick gave me very clear explanations.

What I liked about my method is that each window in Word clearly displays
what language I am working in (whether a paragraph, a document or simply a
word) without my needing to actually 'activate' the window by clicking on it.
I took a snapshot and you can find it here: www.choosealex.com/temp/word.jpg

Thanks for the tip also regarding the two columns. Luckily, I do have a
simpler solution when working with 2 documents: a 23inch widescreen

Thanks for your help!

 

[Patrick Schmid]

Hi Alex,

Doesn't the status bar tell you which language you are currently working
in, or rather which language is currently active at your cursor
position?

Patrick Schmid

 

[Alex]

Ok, I've played around with the language bar, and its settings. Here is what
I think:

1) I really like the fact that I can use Alt+Shift to swap languages, at any
moment, in a document. This is very useful, and probably my favourite feature.

2) However, the tiny little icon showing EN/FR blends in too much with the
taskbar... it's all grey down there (i'm in XP's Silver theme on a
widescreen) so swapping between languages doesn't make it obvious in which
one you're working with... Heck, I even started writing this response using
the FR language without noticing (although honestly it doesn't make much
difference when using a textbox other than Word's, where spellchecking is
running).

3) Waving the mouse over a window or portion of text does NOT tell you which
language is in use. When you start typing, the language is that selected by
the language bar, not by the current paragraph you are working in.

So this is my favourite solution:

Implement what I did before, adding a drop-down menu to the format bar,
telling me what language I'm in. If I click on a paragraph or word, I
immediately get told what language I'm working with (defined by Word). Also,
when using Alt+Shift to swap language, the drop-down menu immediately
switches, making it dead clear again ( see my screenshot
www.choosealex.com/temp/word.jpg ).

As the language issue is only useful to me when working in Word and emails,
I will leave it running simply for the shortcut Alt+Shift combination.
However, I have left the drop-down language box to use as display, and
disabled the language bar's icons (EN/FR/ES). This way, when working in any
document, especially with several side-by-side, I can see each document's
language setting, AND use the shortcut rather than pull-down menu where I
have to scroll through hundreds of languages.

One last thing: the language bar runs an extra process, ctfmon.exe, taking
up 4.8Mb RAM (and slowly increasing). With 1Gb of RAM it's hardly and issue,
but I will carefully monitor this process to see what values it will get to...

Thanks Patrick, I see you are collecting ideas regarding Office 2007...

 

[Patrick Schmid]

Hi Alex,

It's not any different in Office 2007 (and I don't work for MS btw). The
status bar (bottom of the Word window) still indicates the language as
it does in 2003, even though I'd say it's more readable than in 2003.
The language bar is still there as well.
Btw, here is another suggestion: Right-click the language bar icon and
choose restore language bar. This gives you an actual bar that you can
move anywhere on your screen (preferably in a location that doesn't
blend as well with your color scheme).

Patrick Schmid

 

[Alex]

Wow... I had never really taken notice of that small 'language display' on
the bottom of the window pane, next to OVR, EXT, etc. indicating what
language you're working with.

Even less realised that by double-clicking on it, it takes you straight to
the language options! A shortcut I have been longing for! Thanks Patrick.

Ok, now that I've discovered this, it's true that it makes Word+Language Bar
combination logical, rather than my method integrating the pull-down menu in
the Format and Email toolbars.

However...
This feature (bottom bar with language, EXT, OVR, etc.) is not present in
Outlook when writing emails, and I still need it when writing English/French
emails...

So the custom language pull-down box in Outlook stays.

And to keep things simple and tidy (similar in all Word panes), I will keep
this pull-down box in my Format toolbar too (for Word). Like that, the
language option is always in one place: top right-hand corner! Whilst of
course using the language bar for it's shortcut.

Thanks again!

And again, to Microsoft: remove the list of languages which aren't
installed. There's no need for them! Like I was telling Suzanne, fancy having
all MS software (hundreds) listed in your Start bar, but only being able to
click on the ones you have installed!!

 

[Patrick Schmid]

Actually, there is a reason for the long list of languages to be present

You can assign any language to any piece of text, no matter whether
installed or not. The reason is that you might not have the spell
checking for that language present, but still want to make sure it has
the correct language. This can for example happen when you get a
document in Portuguese and edit it on a computer that doesn't have that
language. Nonetheless, you still want to make sure you set the correct
language so that whoever you send the document to (and has the language
installed) can use it correctly.

Patrick Schmid

 

[Patrick Schmid]

Also, in the dialog that opens when you click on the language in the
status bar, Word should list all installed languages on top, then a
horizontal line followed by the rest.

Patrick Schmid

 

[Alex]

Ok, I see the use for all the languagues, so we're back to square one...

One thing: the installed languages are listed at the top, but only if used
at least once. Then they get placed at the top. They remain there as long as
no Office document is closed. If everything is closed, the only remaining top
languages is the default, English (UK). Then you have to re-select by
scrolling through hundreds of languages (or shortcutting by typing FRE which
takes me straight to French, but then I have to scroll through the many
different versions of French, to find France).

So I do understand the option of so many languages, but maybe the language
dialogue box should only have those you want, with a button below: click here
for more languages... which would take you to the world list, and options to
purchase furthere language packs.

Alex

 

[Patrick Schmid]

Hi Alex,

One thing: the installed languages are listed at the top, but only if used
at least once. Then they get placed at the top. They remain there as long as
no Office document is closed. If everything is closed, the only remaining top
languages is the default, English (UK). Then you have to re-select by
scrolling through hundreds of languages (or shortcutting by typing FRE which
takes me straight to French, but then I have to scroll through the many
different versions of French, to find France).

Interesting. I have English and German on top straight after opening
Word.

So I do understand the option of so many languages, but maybe the language
dialogue box should only have those you want, with a button below: click here
for more languages... which would take you to the world list, and options to
purchase furthere language packs.

I don't think you can buy further language packs individually. As far as
I know, you just buy the full set of languages when you buy the proofing
tools. Maybe I am wrong?

Patrick Schmid

 

[Alex]

Hi Patrick,

OK, after playing around with the language settings, I have discovered:

1) that the language bar (advanced text services) is not needed for the use
of Alt+Shift combination and several languages. It is needed as a display to
show you what language you're working in, but Word shows this in the status
bar anyway, and I have my pull-down custom menu in Outlook showing me the
same thing.

2) the installation of a French language/UK keyboard (in Windows)
automatically puts French language at the top of the language list selection
in Word - (previously this was not the case). But this isn't really important
anymore, as I use the Alt+Shift shortcut...

I was never aware of this possibility - installing a French language with UK
keyboard! But I'm glad it's there. MS software should have tips when seeing
users frequently write in several languages!

Thanks again.

 

[Benjamin Barrett]

I apologize for hijacking this thread, but Explorer 7.0 has decided to stop
recognizing the "New" topic button.

There is an option that says "IME Control active" in the Word Options ->
Advanced section of Word 2007, but there is no explanation in the help files
for it. This should be added.

Also, "control + backspace" no longer works to delete the previous word.
Hopefully I'll stumble on an option to enable that some day.