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
    2016-10-06T13:37:51+00:00

    Thank you for your complete instructions, but...

    In the Mac preferences I have Italian as default and English (see image).

    ![](http://fud.community.services.support.microsoft.com/Fud/FileDownloadHandler.ashx?fid=5998c214-07da-4664-b784-aa322dc820aa)

    You can see the Outlook preferences in the image.

    ![](http://fud.community.services.support.microsoft.com/Fud/FileDownloadHandler.ashx?fid=038b77d2-004d-4349-a410-9a5d09a42134)

    When I write:

    "Io scrivo italianoa" (the system give me error for the word "italianoa" (italiano is correct)

    I am writing in English (the system notify me error for the words "am writing" and if I try to correct it suggest me Italian words. It means that not recognize the English language !!!

    ![](http://fud.community.services.support.microsoft.com/Fud/FileDownloadHandler.ashx?fid=4620881f-567b-4b68-8b91-25eff718910f)

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-10-06T13:24:32+00:00

    Thanks!

    Have downloaded the 15.28 insider's fast version, this feature does appear... but just like @cortig, it doesn't work at all (nothing happens, albeit I am trying to "autocorrect" languages formerly set up at languages defined in my mac system)

    One question to you @Ferrr2 : does this option appear on your spelling & grammar option? On my Mac it appear on the Language

    Anyways... Still not quite there!

    Cheers

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-10-06T12:10:11+00:00

    Automatic language recognition is a feature already included in the build 15.28 Insider Fast.

    You should go to the updater, ten choose the option "insider fast". 

    Then, once the update installed, you must:

    1. Compose a new message
    2. Choose the message menu "options" (the tab next to "message" one)
    3. Click on the "spelling and grammar" button
    4. Select the case for automatic language recognition

    It works.

    It took months to MS to give us back a so-much needed feature that was eliminated without explanation, but is finally back!)

    The fact that it has been delivered on a "insider fast" build makes very likely that it will be delivered very soon in a "normal" build, not an "insider" one. 

    But don't take it for granted! The feature was already established in a former build (15.20 I think) just to be eliminated a few days after.

    Attention though to the following points:

    1. Languages available. Outlook is using the languages defined in your mac system. You must go to the Apple menu, then choose "system preferences", then "language and region" and then click on the sign "+" in order to add the languages you want Outlook to auto-detect.
    2. Time. Be patient. In this 15.28 version, Outlook takes several seconds to recognise the language and to correct your words. It needs around 5 seconds and a sentence long enough to "switch" from a language to the other, it's slower than before.

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