Outlook for Mac - Automatic language detection - spelling check on multiple languages

Anonymous
2016-03-14T10:44:50+00:00

Hi,

I use outlook for mac 2016 with a subscription for office 365.

I write emails on different languages, switching constantly during the day from one language to another, depending on my client's language (english, spanish, french or portuguese). 

On outlook for PC, it isn't a problem.

On outlook for mac, the feature is gone after the last upgrade 15.20: outlook considers english as my only language, doesn't detect anymore the other languages, and considers all my typing on, say, spanish, incorrect. And even automatically corrects some of my typing making misspells. I have to re-read all my mails checking for mistakes (made by outlook) and "corrections" wrongly introduced by the app.

How can it be? Can you fix it? Does someone have the same problem and maybe some fix? Thanks in advance.

Outlook | MacOS | Legacy Outlook for Mac | For business

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Anonymous
2016-11-18T19:53:06+00:00

Hello everyone,

On behalf of the team, we wanted to first thank you all for your feedback. As many of you have reported, when we switched over to using the new editor for Outlook 2016, we lost the ability to detect languages automatically.

We’ve heard you loud and clear, and we’ve recently released the fix for this feature in our latest update version 15.28.0 (Build 16111501) released on 11/15.

  • Use Help > Check for Updates from any of the Office 2016 apps to get the latest build.
  • If for some reason you can’t update via Help, you can manually download and install the new build from this article.

If you are an Office Insider, you might have noticed that this feature is turned on in version 15.29.*. Please note that some Insiders have had trouble seeing this feature and this will be resolved in upcoming 15.29 build next week.

Lastly, after updating, you may notice that enabling this feature has a different workflow from the previous mail editor.

To turn on automatic language detection, follow the steps below:

  1. Close Outlook if you have it open.
  2. Open System Preferences and click the Language & Regionicon.

3. In the Language & Region dialog box, add your preferred languages.

![](https://learn-attachment.microsoft.com/api/attachments/130f6031-801a-4b8f-ad3d-a6019a5f127c?platform=QnA) 4. Open Outlook and start a new email. Then go to Edit > Language > Language… to open the Language dialog box.

![](https://learn-attachment.microsoft.com/api/attachments/bff6a533-746d-492d-aceb-b57cc20340c8?platform=QnA) 5. In the Language dialog, check the box next to “Detect language automatically” and click OK.

6. Compose a new email and language will be automatically detected. Note: You’ll need to type in the full sentence for the language detection to work, such as ending the sentence with a punctuation mark or start the next paragraph.

We really appreciate your patience as we rolled this out. We love reading your feedback and how you use our products.

Thanks,

Sunder

PM Manager | Outlook for Mac

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Anonymous
2017-09-15T13:06:40+00:00

Andy, it seems MS Office for Mac (or the Mac itself) does not recognize all "dialects" of a language.

I need to use English and Spanish and it was not working for me. Since I live in Nicaragua I was trying to use the Spanish (Nicaragua) variation (Not that this dictionary is particularly different from regular Spanish).

Any way, someone suggested I use another variant, so I tried with Spanish (Latin America) and Spanish (no last name), with the same result: it did not work.

Then I tried with Spanish (Spain) and with this one, it worked.

I hope this help you.

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  1. Anonymous
    2017-07-17T15:04:27+00:00

    Hi.

    I have finally found a solution that has brought everything to work.

    It's simple.

    When you open System Preferencesand then Languages and Regiondo not select the first "main" languages that appear on top.

    Go all the way down to the full list.

    You will find the same languages, again, often with "local" specifications.

    Example: in the "top" list, as suggested languages, macOs proposes "English".

    Ignore it, and scroll down all the way to the various Englishesavailable: UK, US, Australian, and so on.

    Or spanish: you can Spanish or Aragonese (I don't know what the differences are)...

    The point is that Outlook recognizes only the specific precise languages, and not the generic ones.

    After you have done this, go back to Outlook, reopen it, and you should find all the languages you want it to work with listed there, as per screenshot.

    If your languages are listed there, the automatic switch will work.

    If not, it will not.

    [Switch will happen once you finish the first sentence and close it with a "."]

    This has really changed my life, and furthermore I have understood that changes have happened in MacOs in this case, and not in M$.

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  2. Anonymous
    2017-07-17T15:18:09+00:00

    No it doesn't work, sorry. Outlook only "detects" the language once you type a period, question mark, semicolon etc. However in French typography, as opposed to English or German typography, you put a space before the question mark, exclamation mark or semicolon. Word e.g. adds non-breaking spaces automatically, and so did Outlook a while ago. But then some smart programmers "improved" the detection, and the result is a complete failure. MS reacted but it took month to get to today's level, but the typography issue is still not solved. Why is it an issue? Because if I write in French and start my message with a question, Outlook doesn't include a non-breaking space and then underlines my last word of the question as incorrect (as it only finds out I am writing in French after I type "?").

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  3. Anonymous
    2017-07-17T21:04:55+00:00

    I'm sorry it doesen't work for your deep specific need, but it does work for me, and the major issue of automatic language switch is now ok when I need it to switch from Italian to UK English. 

    If you find a solution to your issue, share!

    best

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