UpSlide has a tool which changes your text box spell check. Sometimes this change does not behave as you expect. The reason why depends on your languages used on your machine and how Microsoft handles languages within Office. This article is designed to help you understand why spell check languages do not change as you may expect.

What's the issue?

When I change spell check language (either manually or using the UpSlide tool) the change seems to work but reverts back over time. This means changing my textbox from being reviewed in English to German which seems to work initially but the change automatically reverses back to English soon after.   

Issue 1: When writing in a textbox spell check activates in a different language from the one in the textbox 

Example of the issue

1. Your Windows language is set to English
2. You have a PPT textbox language set to English
   
3. When you type the language automatically switches to French
   

Why is this issue happening?

Because the input (keyboard) language is set to a French keyboard and the language set on the textbox is not specified and so will use your input language. 

How to fix this issue

First step: Change the Windows keyboard setting to the language you want to type and spell check in.

Second step: Set the spell check language for each text box either manually or using the UpSlide language tool. In most cases this will force Office to ignore your input language and only use the textbox language for spell check. 

Still not working? See below for why this may not have fixed your issue. 

Issue 2: When inserting a new slide in the presentation spell check is activated in a different language to what is set in the master

Example of the issue

A presentation has English set in all the slide master layouts. When inserting a new slide in the presentation all the spell checks are set in French for no obvious reason. Page numbers and footer boxes are set to English though.

Why is this issue happening?

Because the input (keyboard) language is set to a French keyboard and the language set on the textbox is not specified and so will use your input language. 

How to fix this issue

Change the Windows keyboard setting to the language you want to type and spell check in.

Still not working? See below for why this may not have fixed your issue. 

Issue 3: Words within my PPT file are being split in the middle rather than wrapping onto a new line

This is a long standing PPT issue present in many versions of Office. When you receive a file from a user with a Logographic/Syllabic language installed (e.g. Japanese) a default setting can be applied without the user doing anything. The issue results in text wrapping splitting words like this:

To change this you will need to have installed a Logographic/Syllabic language as an Editing language in Office (see below on how to know which Editing language you have installed). Then select the text box with the bad wrapping style -> Home tab -> Paragraph Options -> Asian Typography -> Uncheck Allow Latin words to wrap in the middle of a word.

Why am I affected by any of the issues above?

The most common languages the fixes above do not work for are are when you are switching between Logographic/Syllabic languages (which Microsoft calls Asian languages) and an Alphabetical language (primarily Latin based languages). E.g. switching between Korean and Italian. 

For the issues above where you have a textbox set to one language type and type using another language type Office will enable the two spell checks. This means anything written in Korean will have a Korean spell check and if there is some Italian written in the same textbox that will have Italian.

Which language setting are you talking about?

There are several language settings for Windows and MS Office. In italics are the main language settings that are used during document creation.  

Windows language settings

• Display language: used for Windows features such as Explorer or Control Panel.
• Keyboard language: used to determine what type of keyboard is being used to type (E.g. QWERTY).
• Regional format + additional settings: used to determine the decimal separator in numbers, the date format.

Office language settings

• The Editing Language: used for grammar or spell checking.
• The Display Language: used for interfaces, buttons and everything in toolbars.
• The Help Language: used only for the Office help area.

Where are these two settings found?

Regional formatting language is found within Control Panel / Windows Settings.

Office Editing Language is found within PPT/Excel/Word settings.