Bilingual Spell Check

[Jacinthe]

Office 2002 with Windows XP

I create a lot of bilingual forms for my job where the spanish translation
immediately follows the english. Currently I have to mark each language
separately in order to prevent spell check from marking half the document as
incorrectly spelled (or worse, trying to correct a spanish word to an english
word). Is there any way to set the spell check or dictionary to
automatically recognise words from both languages without me marking which is
which? It's really a royal PITA to have to leave the keyboard to mark every
other word (in some cases) as a different language.

 

[Earle Horton]

You can install Office 2007. The proofing tools are somewhat smarter. They
can pick out a Spanish word in an English paragraph and vice versa, for
example. You may have to upgrade hardware also. The Office 2007 proofing
tools are reputed to require at least 1 Gigabyte of physical memory. What
you are asking for requires increased computing capacity, so it is not out
of line to require additional hardware and software to accomplish this.

If you have multiple languages installed in Control Panel, Regional and
Language Options, Languages, Details, with keyboard shortcuts for each, then
maybe Office 2002 will follow you if you use the keyboard shortcuts to
switch between English and Spanish. This is maybe worth trying.

Saludos cordiales,

Earle

 

[Jacinthe]

Sadly, 2007 is not an option. (I have it for my home computer and love it).
While my work computer can certainly handle the added load, Office XP is the
"workplace standard" for my office. I don't think they'll pay for me to
upgrade, and I'm certainly not going to fork out the money myself.

Installing the 2nd language might work ... at least I can switch easier (I
think) via the "Left Alt - Shift" Keyboard shortcut and not have to use the
mouse all the time. I hope. I'll let you know how this turns out. Thanks!

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Jacinthe,

Office XP/2002 (english edition) comes with proofing tools for English, French and Spanish. You may want to look into creating
different Word styles for the text you're using with the appropriate language choice for the style, then apply that style as needed
when creating the form.

You may also want to experiment a bit with the feature
In Tools=>Language=>Set Langauge
to have Word automatically detect language, once you've enabled Spanish as an editing language in
Start=>Programs=>Microsoft Office=>Microsoft Office Tools.

===========
Office 2002 with Windows XP

I create a lot of bilingual forms for my job where the spanish translation
immediately follows the english. Currently I have to mark each language
separately in order to prevent spell check from marking half the document as
incorrectly spelled (or worse, trying to correct a spanish word to an english
word). Is there any way to set the spell check or dictionary to
automatically recognise words from both languages without me marking which is
which? It's really a royal PITA to have to leave the keyboard to mark every
other word (in some cases) as a different language.<<
--

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

 

[Jacinthe]

Thanks, Bob. I have tried this one:

You may also want to experiment a bit with the feature
In Tools=>Language=>Set Langauge
to have Word automatically detect language, once you've enabled Spanish as an editing language in
Start=>Programs=>Microsoft Office=>Microsoft Office Tools.

Basically, it doesn't seem to work. The problem with option #1 is that
(let's be honest) I'm hoping for a lazy-man's solution. Why? Well, because,
for example, one of my forms is nine pages long. On each page, there are
about 30-40 questions. Each question, and sometimes the possible answers,
are written bilingually, i.e.

Explain all “Yes†answers or any other problems (Expliqua todes problemas
indicadas con repuesta “Si")

I have 100+ forms to change. There are 9+ pages in about half of them.
That's a lot of language setting. And seeing as how its a total PITA to do
this, bit by bit, I was really hoping there would be an easier way.

 

[Earle Horton]

That's why the upgrade to Office 2007 is worth it, for bilingual users
anyway.

Thanks, Bob. I have tried this one:


Basically, it doesn't seem to work. The problem with option #1 is that
(let's be honest) I'm hoping for a lazy-man's solution. Why? Well,
because,
for example, one of my forms is nine pages long. On each page, there are
about 30-40 questions. Each question, and sometimes the possible answers,
are written bilingually, i.e.

Explain all "Yes" answers or any other problems (Expliqua todes problemas
indicadas con repuesta "Si")

Explicar todos los problemas indicados con respuesta "Sí".
(Explicar es bastante neutro frente a explica/explique. El infinitivo lo
recomiendo para este tipo de indicaciones.)

Word 2003 failed to detect the example as Spanish, even after I corrected
the spelling. I believe that Word 2007 could do so. The Office 2007
proofing tools are newer, better and use more memory and computing power.
It certainly wouldn't work in Word XP, because they are basically the same
proofing tools as 2003.

Saludos cordiales,

Earle