language settings in tables inconsistent?

[jop]

Hi all

Following behaviour of word:
1) Create a new document. Language setting for the whole document is
"Deutsch (Schweiz)". Auto language recognition is disabled
3) Menu 'Table' -> 'Insert' -> 'Table'
5) Repeat step 3 n-times. n seems to depend on the number of cells or
the number of columns and lines respectively. Doesn't matter whether
tables are nested or not.
6) Language setting now has changed to mixed "English (US)" and
"Deutsch (Schweiz)". I'm not able to change the settings back to
"Deutsch (Schweiz)" via 'Tools' -> 'Language' -> 'Set Language'.

Just the same when copy paste from excel in step 3.

Why, I'm not able to change the language settings back. Why is Word
changing the settings? Any experiences or explanations for this?


Thanks!


MS Windows 2002, SP2
MS Word 2002, SP3

 

[Cindy M.]

Hi Jop,

Following behaviour of word:
1) Create a new document. Language setting for the whole document is
"Deutsch (Schweiz)". Auto language recognition is disabled
3) Menu 'Table' -> 'Insert' -> 'Table'
5) Repeat step 3 n-times. n seems to depend on the number of cells or
the number of columns and lines respectively. Doesn't matter whether
tables are nested or not.
6) Language setting now has changed to mixed "English (US)" and
"Deutsch (Schweiz)". I'm not able to change the settings back to
"Deutsch (Schweiz)" via 'Tools' -> 'Language' -> 'Set Language'.

Just the same when copy paste from excel in step 3.

Why, I'm not able to change the language settings back. Why is Word
changing the settings? Any experiences or explanations for this?

In the Tips section on my website you'll find an explanation of how
language formatting in Word is controlled. Among other things, it
describes the conflict between Windows language and Word's default
language setting. If these two aren't in synch, all kinds of weirdness
is possible.

So, the first thing you should do is check whether your Windows has the
same default language as Word. If it does not, synch them up and see if
the internal Word behavior becomes more stable/predictable.

Whenenever you copy outside information into Word, it brings language
formatting along. Mostly, this is retained. So I'm guessing your Excel
language is US English?

Finally, which version of Word/Office?

Once you have this basic information, we can look deeper into the
question about the tables. My best guess, at this point, is that the
language is bubbling up through a Table Style's settings.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 17 2005)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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[jop]

Hi Cindy


Some more infos first
MS-Windows 2002 Pro German, SP2. All language/regional settings
Switzerland/German
MS-Office10 German
MS-Word 2002 German, SP3

I did already checked all the things you describe on your homepage.
They are correct so far.

I do understand Word changes the language settings in case I insert
e.g. Chinese text in an Excel sheet and then copy paste content as
table to my Word document. But I do not expect Word to change anything
when repeatedly creating empty tables in Word.

Debugging in VisualBasic editor shows (as expected) a change of the
Language ID value from
'ActiveDocument.Range.LanguageID = wdSwissGerman'
to
'ActiveDocument.Range.LanguageID = 9999999'


Regards J

 

[Cindy M.]

Hi Jop,

OK, things got busy and I got side-tracked. For quite a while. Sorry
about that...

FWIW I can reproduce getting a mixed language for the entire document
range and even for a table. However, even if I loop through every
single character in the document I can't locate even ONE with the wrong
language.

I tried this in Word 2003, saving such a file to XML. I couldn't find
the source of this anomaly in there, either. It must be something
buried VERY deeply in Word.

As a matter of fact, I seem to get it only under the following
circumstances:

1. The range I'm checking breaks across a page
2. There are two tables with different numbers of columns "merged"
together as one

I came across (1) when a single table broke across a page. I was
getting the mixed information for the table, but... As soon as I moved
the entire table to one page it stopped. Ditto for removing the
paragraph mark between two tables, then splitting them again.

Following behaviour of word:
1) Create a new document. Language setting for the whole document is
"Deutsch (Schweiz)". Auto language recognition is disabled
3) Menu 'Table' -> 'Insert' -> 'Table'
5) Repeat step 3 n-times. n seems to depend on the number of cells or
the number of columns and lines respectively. Doesn't matter whether
tables are nested or not.
6) Language setting now has changed to mixed "English (US)" and
"Deutsch (Schweiz)". I'm not able to change the settings back to
"Deutsch (Schweiz)" via 'Tools' -> 'Language' -> 'Set Language'.

Just the same when copy paste from excel in step 3.

Why, I'm not able to change the language settings back. Why is Word
changing the settings? Any experiences or explanations for this?

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 17 2005)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question
or reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail

 

[jop]

Hi Cindy

No worries, I had other things on my table as well. Probably as
everybody does

I didn't check the behavior you describe, yet. But I'll do so this
week. Thanks!

Meanwhile:
We got through this on several machines and in various configurations.
The problem was always reproducible. Then I found that Word this is
probably not a problem with language settings only:
1. Create a new empty document in MS-Word
2. Type 48x Enter (49 empty lines)
3. Select all (Ctrl-A)
4. Everything seems to be ok
5. Hit Enter for another time (50 empty lines)
6. Select all (Ctrl-A)
7. Text style and paragraph alignment are not displayed anymore in the
toolbar
8. Hit Enter for another time (51 empty lines)
9. Select all (Ctrl-A)
10. Font name, font size and language setting disappeared as well

Me too, I got the impression something deep down in MS-Word is behaving
.... well let's say *strange*

 

[Cindy M.]

Hi Jop,

Yes, I think it's the (automatic) page break. I imagine its formatting is
"undefined".

No worries, I had other things on my table as well. Probably as
everybody does

I didn't check the behavior you describe, yet. But I'll do so this
week. Thanks!

Meanwhile:
We got through this on several machines and in various configurations.
The problem was always reproducible. Then I found that Word this is
probably not a problem with language settings only:
1. Create a new empty document in MS-Word
2. Type 48x Enter (49 empty lines)
3. Select all (Ctrl-A)
4. Everything seems to be ok
5. Hit Enter for another time (50 empty lines)
6. Select all (Ctrl-A)
7. Text style and paragraph alignment are not displayed anymore in the
toolbar
8. Hit Enter for another time (51 empty lines)
9. Select all (Ctrl-A)
10. Font name, font size and language setting disappeared as well

Me too, I got the impression something deep down in MS-Word is behaving
.... well let's say *strange*

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 17 2005)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or
reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail