Change the language Office uses in its menus and proofing tools

Configure Office language

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:

1. On the File tab, select Options and choose Language.

2. Under Office display Language, make sure the display language you want Office to use is listed.

   

3. 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].

4. If the language you want is not listed, select Add a Language and follow the instructions there.

To configure the authoring and proofing language:

1. Within any Office application, On the File, select Options and choose Language.

2. Under Office authoring languages and proofing, make sure the language you want to use for authoring your document is listed.

   

3. 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.

4. 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:

1. On the Apple menu, choose System Preferences > Language & Region
2. In the Preferred Languages list, set the desired language to be your primary language by dragging it to the top of the list.
3. If the language you want doesn't appear just press the ⁠+⁠ sign and add it.
4. 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

1. On the top toolbar, select Tools and choose Language.
2. Select your language.
3. To make it the default for all new documents select Default.
4. Select OK.

Excel

1. On the top toolbar, select Tools and choose Language.
2. Choose your language and select OK.

OneNote

1. On the top toolbar, select Tools and choose Set Proofing Language.
2. Choose your language and select OK.

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.

• Change views on OneDrive (Open Settings and scroll for language settings.)
• Set your language in SharePoint. (To change a language, select Settings and choose View all.) 
• Change your language settings in Dropbox

To set the proofing tools language in your app

1. On the Review tab select Spelling & Grammar.
2. Select Set Proofing Language.

OneNote for the web doesn't have it's own language setting, use OneNote for the desktop. 

Things to know

• This change will only take effect from this point in the document forward.
• 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.
• This change only affects the current document. For subsequent documents you'll need to repeat these steps.