• 2-minute read
  • 30th January 2015

How to Change the Language of a Microsoft Word Document

If you are writing an essay at a UK university, chances are you will have to write in British English. Likewise, if you’re in the UK and writing for an international audience, you should make sure to adapt your language use accordingly.

Most word processors, including Microsoft Word, are automatically set to US spelling. This is fine if you’re writing for an American (or even international) audience. But otherwise you might need to make a change. In this post, we explain how to change the language of a document in Microsoft Word.

Step One

Select all of the text in your document. To do this quickly, use ‘Ctrl + A’ (or ‘command + A’ on Mac). If you want to use different language settings in different parts of the document, simply selected the text you want to modify.

Step Two

On a Windows PC, go to the ‘Review’ tab, click ‘Language’ and select ‘Set Proofing Language’.

changelanguage1On a Mac, go to ‘Tools-Language’.

Alternatively, you can click on the ‘Language’ setting at the bottom of the screen.

Find this useful?

Subscribe to our newsletter and get writing tips from our editors straight to your inbox.

Change the Language of Your DocumentThis will open a new dialogue box.

Step Three

In the window that opens, choose your preferred language from the list. Click ‘OK’ to change the proofing language of the selected text.

changelanguage3Step Four

If you usually use this language for your documents, click ‘Set As Default’. And that’s it! Good luck!

Comments (6)
Ahsan
30th December 2020 at 18:23
Thanks for explaining it in such a simple way.
Sheila
14th February 2021 at 07:21
Thank you, very helpful and straight forward. excellent!!
John Visser
23rd April 2021 at 05:25
Hi, This only worked for that document. I want to get rid of US English for all documents. How do I do that? Please, help.
    Proofed
    23rd April 2021 at 09:54
    Hi, John. Did you try clicking the 'Set As Default' option (see the bottom of the post for reference)?
John Morris
21st January 2022 at 11:21
I'm in China, and the language 'around the edge' of the Word doc is Chinese. So I can't follow your instructions. I'm English and would like to set it up so I can write in British English, without constant American corrections. Can you please send instructions where I can find the relevant boxes to do this, without being able to read what I'm doing? ie 'Click on the third box along the top of the document.' Thanks.
    Proofed
    21st January 2022 at 17:40
    Hi, John. We can't realistically offer advice of that kind as different versions of MS Word have different menu layouts, so it would depend on the edition and operating system you're using. In addition, a better solution to your problem would be to change the display language in Office as a whole, which should allow you to view the menus in English. You can find some advice on this on the Microsoft website: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/change-the-language-office-uses-in-its-menus-and-proofing-tools-f5c54ff9-a6fa-4348-a43c-760e7ef148f8




Get help from a language expert.

Try our proofreading services for free.

More Writing Tips?
Trusted by thousands of leading
institutions and businesses

Make sure your writing is the best it can be with our expert English proofreading and editing.