Keyboard and Language Auto-Select problem

[stu]

Version: 2004
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
Processor: Intel

I type documents in both Russian and English, and I have a problem with the way Word auto-detects the language. I have set the default language to US English. When I switch to the Russian-Phonetic keyboard, Word automatically selects the language to be Russian (which makes sense). However, when I switch back to using the US English keyboard, Word _does not_ re-set the language to English for what I type subsequently -- which means that it cannot be caught by the US English spell checker, and that it auto-formats in Russian (e.g. rather than using curly quotes it uses the standard Russian quotation marks « and »).

Now I can solve this by manually going to Language and selecting English each time I switch from Russian back to English, but needless to say this is a bit of a nuisance. I'd be happy just to switch off the Language AutoDetect function -- I don't spell check in Russian anyway -- but this does not seem to be an option for Word 2004 for Mac.

Any suggestions on how to solve this?

 

[John McGhie]

Go to Word>Preferences>Edit and switch OFF "Match font with keyboard."

That will produce a better experience.

Cheers

Version: 2004
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
Processor: Intel

I type documents in both Russian and English, and I have a problem with the
way Word auto-detects the language. I have set the default language to US
English. When I switch to the Russian-Phonetic keyboard, Word automatically
selects the language to be Russian (which makes sense). However, when I switch
back to using the US English keyboard, Word _does not_ re-set the language to
English for what I type subsequently -- which means that it cannot be caught
by the US English spell checker, and that it auto-formats in Russian (e.g.
rather than using curly quotes it uses the standard Russian quotation marks «
and »).

Now I can solve this by manually going to Language and selecting English each
time I switch from Russian back to English, but needless to say this is a bit
of a nuisance. I'd be happy just to switch off the Language AutoDetect
function -- I don't spell check in Russian anyway -- but this does not seem to
be an option for Word 2004 for Mac.

Any suggestions on how to solve this?

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[stu]

Thanks very much, John, for your reply, but I had already turned off "Match font with keyboard," and that does not solve this particular problem -- the fact that Word switches the Language to Russian when I select the Russian Phonetic keyboard, but does not switch the Language back to English when I then select the US English keyboard.

 

[John McGhie]

Yes, I figured you might have already been there.

Sorry: It's a bug we have to live with.

We have complained long and loud about this one. It seems that whoever
designed the mechanism didn't really have any experience of working in
multiple languages and they've made a terrible mess of it.

They are "thinking about" fixing it. Use Help>Send Feedback to register
your "vote", which will improve the chances of this one making the cut for
next version.

This is one of those "marginal" bugs: the fix is fairly expensive, and the
percentage of users affected is not high. So every vote counts.

Cheers

Thanks very much, John, for your reply, but I had already turned off "Match
font with keyboard," and that does not solve this particular problem -- the
fact that Word switches the Language to Russian when I select the Russian
Phonetic keyboard, but does not switch the Language back to English when I
then select the US English keyboard.

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[stu]

Thanks, John, I appreciate your help, and I will do as you suggest.
Stu