word 2007 and grammar check

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

No, the language of the document may differ from the language that has been
set as the Word default, but the language of any given text is just the
language that is applied; there is no way to set the default language of a
given document: all you can do is select text (all or some of it) and set a
specific language that will be applied to it. The language at the insertion
point can vary, but it varies only from the text around it, not from any set
standard for the document.

This is quibbling, of course, but I think that implying that there is a
"set" or default language for a document is deceptive because a different
language can ride in on a single pasted character and spread like wildfire
if you continue typing from that point. Moreover, I'm not sure that these
unwanted language settings can be removed even by selecting text and
pressing Ctrl+Spacebar (though this *should* work); one must be constantly
vigilant and periodically select all the text and reapply the desired
language setting.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

Once you've set the language, it becomes the set language -- you can
watch the pot, but "a watched pot never boils." It's just a quirk of
the word "set" and a few others that the past participle (adjectival)
form is the same as the basic verb form.

The actual language of the document (for instance, English) can differ
from the Set Language of the document -- and you might not notice
until you type quotation marks and get guillemets or a pair of commas
(French and German behavior respectively), or a (semi)colon and get a
nonbreaking space before it (French).

 

[Peter T. Daniels]

I didn't mention "default language" -- there's no such thing. When I
say Set Language, I mean the language that's revealed when you click
the Set Language button (or that's shown in the status bar). By
"actual language," I mean the language you're writing in. I've edited
an entire document written in English without ever noticing that the
Set Language was French, because I didn't happen to type any quotation
marks or colons or semicolons. (I had discovered that for some reason
it was A4 size rather than letter size, but that didn't suggest it had
a wrong Set Language.)

Ctrl-Spacebar will switch your system to Chinese if there's the
slightest chance of doing so -- not only if the Chinese IME is
enabled, but also if a Chinese font is installed.

I don't know whether Ctrl-Shift-Z will reset the language, but I doubt
it, simply because there doesn't seem to be such a thing as a default
language.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

There *is* a default language. It is the language used in Word by default,
selected by clicking the Default... button after selecting a language in the
Set Language dialog. Unfortunately, it seems to be easily influenced by the
language selected as the default in Windows. It will also be the default
language for any document you create in Word. You can set the language for
that document (or any portion of text in it) to some other language, but the
one chosen as the default will be the fallback.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

I didn't mention "default language" -- there's no such thing. When I
say Set Language, I mean the language that's revealed when you click
the Set Language button (or that's shown in the status bar). By
"actual language," I mean the language you're writing in. I've edited
an entire document written in English without ever noticing that the
Set Language was French, because I didn't happen to type any quotation
marks or colons or semicolons. (I had discovered that for some reason
it was A4 size rather than letter size, but that didn't suggest it had
a wrong Set Language.)

Ctrl-Spacebar will switch your system to Chinese if there's the
slightest chance of doing so -- not only if the Chinese IME is
enabled, but also if a Chinese font is installed.

I don't know whether Ctrl-Shift-Z will reset the language, but I doubt
it, simply because there doesn't seem to be such a thing as a default
language.

 

[Greg Maxey]

Unless you insist on having the last word you should consider this:

"With Daniels, it is his belief in his own infallibility that is so
irritating. Even when obviously wrong he continues his arguments."

An anonymous observation proven over and over again right here in this
group.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

The observation was not "anonymous," and it's possible that the person who
made it (in a private, NDA-covered NG) might prefer not to have it aired
here.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Greg Maxey]

It is anonymous to the Mr. D and unless blind the person that made it has
seen it aired here several times. What is your point?

 

[Beth Melton]

To add to this, sometimes getting the proofing language to display on the
status bar for the current text is difficult. If you turn on the Language
option for the status bar you also need to have more than one language
enabled in order for it to actually display and you need to exit and restart
Word. If after you exit and restart Word the proofing language still doesn't
display on the status bar then you may need to close all Office applications
and start Word again. Failing that, try restarting your computer. But once
it does finally appear it will stay unless you return to a single enabled
proofing language .

~Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

 

[Beth Melton]

If the content selected by paragraph then as Peter suggested, it could be
hiding a empty paragraph mark used for creating the space between documents.
Based on your description that's what it sounds like. Although Greg's
advice, "You can set the language to USEnglish or whatever by pressing
CTRL+A, blah, blah" should have rectified the problem in the main document.
Did you try this? In the event you aren't sure of the steps to perform for
the "blah blah" portion of the instructions here they are:

After pressing Ctrl+A to select the entire document:
- On the Review tab, click Set Language
- In the Language dialog box, select your preferred proofing language
- Click OK.

If you want to put this to rest and email me your document I can take a look
at it for you and see if I can remove the erroneous language. To obtain a
valid email address remove NoSpam4Me from (e-mail address removed)

~Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

 

[Justin Jayjohn]

Greg & Suzanne,

I was not ignoring your advice. I am using the web to view these forums. I
just now found your additional replies to my problem. I have tried
everything with set language. I can get the issue corrected with document a,
for example. As soon as the user is emailed another document, the process
starts all over again. She runs grammar check, she gets prompted for
different language packs.

 

[Justin Jayjohn]

Beth,

I notice your an Office MVP. Have you come across the issue of owa wanting
to open 2007 attachments as zip files.

 

[Beth Melton]

The new Office 2007 file formats are actually compressed xml files. You can
append the file name with .zip and open and view the content in the Windows
Explorer or your favorite compression utility outside the application.
Speaking of compression utilities, I'd say that's what's causing the
attachment issue you are encountering. The utility recognizes it's a zip
file based on the content, rather than the file extension, and is trying to
open it.

btw, did you get your language issue resolved? I'm still happy to take a
look at your file for you.

~Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

 

[Justin Jayjohn]

Beth,

I am still working on both problems (2007 word grammar check & owa & 2007
attachments). What is the best way for us to communicate. Continue posting
replies or should I send you an email about both issues I am currently trying
to resolve.

 

[Beth Melton]

The best way to communicate, and one that will benefit everyone, is to
continue the discussion in the thread. There may be others interested in the
attachments discussion and the outcome of the grammar issues. Plus these
threads can be searched using Google and it may help someone in the future.


For the grammar check issue you can email a sample document to
(e-mail address removed) (Remove NoSpam4Me to obtain a valid email
address). I'll take a look at it and send you back a copy with corrections
(if I find something) and post a response back to this thread.

~Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

 

[Justin Jayjohn]

Beth,
I will need to hold off on sending you a document for now. I cannot go into
any details. However, I just got a call from another user yesterday
complaining about the same issue. But, this user had a one page letter maybe
2 paragraphs at the most. The user ran spell check; the document was showing
that “French†was the default when it actually was not. I was able to
recreate this issue. I opened the same one page document, changed the date,
and ran spell check. I got the same notification as the user. We are now
seeing this issue since we moved everyone from Office 2003 to Office 2007.
We did not have this issue before.

I had opened another post about owa and 2007 attachments. No one has
replied to that post. I will give you more details. I have 2 computers,
setup exactly the same. Both have XP SP3, office 2007 with compatibility
pack installed, same version of IE, winzip etc. Basically they are both
configured exactly the same. On one machine I can open 2007 attachments no
problems. I right click on the attachment, from owa, the file will open as a
word, excel etc. On the other machine, I right click to open. I get the
window to save the file to my machine, the file shows as a zip file. So I
save the file to my machine, when I try to open the file. I cannot open the
excel document, the zip file looks like html doc etc. We are now seeing some
machines in our network will open the attachments okay. Other machines want
to save the files as a zip file.