There are three areas in Microsoft Office where you may want to change the language.
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Editing or Authoring is the language in which you write and edit your content. You may need to install an associated keyboard for this language via Windows settings.
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Proofing tools are spelling and grammar check. Typically, you'll set this language to be the same as the editing or authoring language.
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Display language is for all the buttons, menus, and controls in Office.
You can set the display and editing or authoring languages independently from each other. For example, you may want the display language to be English, but the document you're writing or editing is in French.
Note:Â If you want to completely change Office, permanently, to a different language you'll get the best results if you first set that to be your default display language in Windows as well. For more info, see Manage the language and keyboard/input layout settings in Windows.
Tip: To prevent having to manually configure the proofing language with each new document in Word, switch on the option to detect the language you're writing. On the Review tab, go to Language. Select Language, choose Set Proofing Language, and then pick Detect language automatically.
In Office, the language options are in the Office Language Preferences dialog box. The display and authoring languages can be set independently. For example, you could have everything match the language of your operating system, or you could use a combination of languages for your operating system, authoring, and display.
To configure the display language:
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On the File tab, select Options and choose Language.
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Under Office display Language, make sure the display language you want Office to use is listed.
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Select the language you want, and then select Set as Preferred. If you want your Office display language to match the display language you have for Windows, select Match Microsoft Windows [Language].
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If the language you want is not listed, select Add a Language and follow the instructions there.
To configure the authoring and proofing language:
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Within any Office application, On the File, select Options and choose Language.
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Under Office authoring languages and proofing, make sure the language you want to use for authoring your document is listed.
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If the language you want appears in the list, select it, and then select Set as Preferred. If the language you want is not listed, select Add a language, and then follow the instructions in the Add an authoring language dialog box.
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If the language accessory pack includes proofing tools for that language, its status appears as Proofing installed. If the status is Proofing available, click the link to install the proofing tools.
If the language you want isn't available...
Download the proper Language Accessory Pack for the language you want to use from this page: Language Accessory Pack for Office. The Language Accessory Pack contains the display and proofing tools for most languages, but you can still choose to have your display in one language and editing or authoring in another.
Microsoft Office for Mac already contains all of the available languages, so there's nothing to download. To configure Office to use those languages follow these steps:
User Interface
The display language for Office for Mac uses the primary language set for operating system. To change the display language for Office for Mac, you need to set a different primary language for your operating system:
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On the Apple menu, choose System Preferences > Language & Region
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In the Preferred Languages list, set the desired language to be your primary language by dragging it to the top of the list.
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If the language you want doesn't appear just press the + sign and add it.
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You'll have to restart your Office application for this change to take effect.
Editing
Setting the editing language depends on the program you're working with.
Word and PowerPoint
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On the top toolbar, select Tools and choose Language.
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Select your language.
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To make it the default for all new documents select Default.
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Select OK.
Tip:Â To prevent having to manually configure the proofing language with each new document in Word, switch on the option to detect the language you're writing. On the Review tab, go to Language, and then select Detect language automatically.
Excel
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On the top toolbar, select Tools and choose Language.
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Choose your language and select OK.
OneNote
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On the top toolbar, select Tools and choose Set Proofing Language.
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Choose your language and select OK.
User Interface & Editing - The display and keyboard languages for Office for Android is the same as the language that the device is set to. You can configure those by going to Settings > Language and Input.
Proofing - On Android you can change the proofing language in Word.
In Word on your Android phone, tap EditÂ
In Word on your Android tablet go to the Review tab and you can select your proofing language from the ribbon.
User Interface & Editing - The display and keyboard languages for Office for iOS are the same as the language that the device is set to. See Change the language on your iPhone or iPad for instructions.
Proofing - On iOS you can change the proofing language in Word.
In Word on your iPhone, tap Edit
In your document, on the Review tab, tap Spell Check
User Interface - The best way to set the display language in Office for the web is to set the language in the host where your documents live. That's usually OneDrive, SharePoint, Dropbox, etc. When you open a document from one of those sites, Office Online will use the display language you have that service set to.
Tip:Â If you're using a personal Microsoft account, you can choose your preferred display language in your profile settings at https://account.microsoft.com/profile.
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Change views on OneDrive (Open Settings and scroll for language settings.)
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Set your language in SharePoint. (To change a language, select Settings and choose View all.)Â
To set the proofing tools language in your app
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On the Review tab select Spelling & Grammar.
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Select Set Proofing Language.
OneNote for the web doesn't have it's own language setting, use OneNote for the desktop.Â
Things to know
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This change will only take effect from this point in the document forward.
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To apply this change to any existing text in the document, press Ctrl+A to select all of the existing text, then set the proofing language with the steps above.
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This change only affects the current document. For subsequent documents you'll need to repeat these steps.
See Also
Set up or change the languages used to check spelling and grammar
What languages are supported in Office?
Translate text into a different language
