Forum Discussion
Language settings in Word online
In the account settings I have chosen: "Languages
Display language
English (Canada)
Preferred languages
English (Canada)"
Whether in the app or in the M365 account settings, all my choices for region and language are set to CANADA. And yet Word shows errors for such spellings as "Colour" and "Centre" etc.
I suspect this is an error in the system related to the wide varieties of English one can select. The software is otherwise very good so it makes this very troubling. Please fix this.
My online 365 Mac Excel is also in Dutch while it should be in English.
Please fix this, as it's getting very irritating. Excel for Mac is irritating enough with it's limitations, considering the price you pay for it, I already feel a second class customer
The web-based versions of Office programs use the language settings of the operating system. As far as I know, you can't change that fact. 😞
With regard to my OS - it is Mac 10.15.7 and set to "Canadian English" because I am in Toronto. Word Online tells me "colour" is spelled wrong but it is correct. It's therefore got nothing to do with the language of the OS.
And to repeat, in multiple areas of the MS 365 and Online Word I have it set to Canadian English but it doesn't work correctly.
Clearly it's a work in progress as is other aspects of the software. Today I had an issue creating a copy of a file in Excel Online - it would not allow creation of copy via "save as" so I had to download a copy as a workaround.
In my experience, the web-based versions of Office programs give us (as users) very little control. You could try changing the language settings for your OneDrive account, as suggested by other contributors in this thread. Maybe that will fix the issue you are experiencing.
Note that I am unable to offer advice that specifically applies to Word in a Mac environment, because I am a PC user myself.
An important distinction, on both Mac and PC platforms, is that the language in a specific document may differ from the default you have specified. This often becomes apparent when you receive a document from someone else.
this shows how to change it, i did months ago and still is ok
https://www.digitalcitizen.life/how-change-language-used-outlookcom-office-online-more/
Thanks for the suggestion. However, in Word and Outlook Online, changing the display language will also change the default proofing language, in my experience. This is not necessarily what I want to do.
