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Peter2741's avatar
Peter2741
Copper Contributor
Apr 08, 2023

Convert a pre-typed US English document to a UK English document

I thought this was going to be so easy when I binged how to do this, but I'm amazed to discover that there doesn't in fact appear to be a solution.  The closest I can find is to use the Translate feature of Word 365, but the problem with that is the Translate function makes no distinction between US English and UK English, so all I can do is translate from English to English, which, of course, does nothing.  Is there a solution to this?  If there isn't, that would be crazy, because Word can detect the different spellings between US and UK English, so why can't the devs go that tiny bit further and provide a Translate Document from US English to UK English (or vice versa) function so that a document can be convered from US English to UK English with a just one or two clicks of the mouse button instead of the user having to go through the entire document and weed out all the highlighted US spellings?  I stress, I want to convert a pre-typed document, not have Word amend US-spelled words to UK-spelling on the fly when I'm typing a document.

    • Peter2741's avatar
      Peter2741
      Copper Contributor

      Thanks Doug_Robbins_Word_MVP 

       

      The AutoSpellCorrect macro provided by the forum contributor is 90%ish what I'm after (the only niggle being that it functions a bit too generally in not deciding to change the spelling of words based solely on whether the US English words it's correcting have a UK English counterpart -- the macro is, therefore, going to be prone to making contextual spelling errors, as pointed out in the forum postings).  But, even so, there's no need to worry too much about that in this instance because I'm going to have to read through the entire document after the macro's run anyway, and the document's not too long.  (There are, though, going to be quite a few of these documents that will need converting to UK spelling.)

       

      But all Word has to do to get 100% of what I'm after is confine any spelling changes it makes solely to  those US English words that it recognises are spelled differently from the equivalent UK English words (and vice versa, to convert a document from UK English to US English).  It already has separate language packs it can access for US English and UK English, so it should be well within the realms of coding possibility to make such functionality 100% reliable (or as near as dammit).  E.g. Does the US English word "color" have a UK  English equivalent word that is spelled differently?  If yes, then change its spelling to UK English.  If no, then make no changes, move on to the next word and ask the same question.  That's the entire coding in a nutshell.  Word already can translate French Canadian to standard French, and vice versa, so I know it already has the capability, it's just the devs for some  perplexing reason haven't thought to do the same for US/UK English.

       

      Thanks again, though -- big help! :smile:

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