Reset the language and dictionary settings in a Word file

How to reset the language and dictionary settings in a Microsoft Word file

If you receive a Word file from another person, it will have that person’s language settings embedded in the file: including any words that they have marked as being correct when they are in fact spelling mistakes, or words that the other person has missed because they have accidentally/wrongly added misspellings to their own user dictionaries.

Word will not show these errors on screen until you clean out the user settings.

This is what you need to do in Word 2007. The syntax/paths change slightly for different versions of Word.

(1) Open the file.

(2) Press CTRL+A to select all the text.

(3) Go to the REVIEW tab and choose Set Language.

(4) In the window that opens, choose the language you’re working in.

(5) Make sure the “Do not check spelling or grammar” box is clear – as in the image above. If it has a black tick in it, click the tick to remove it. If the option box is greyed out, click it several times and eventually the box will clear.

(6) Make sure the “Detect language automatically” box is not ticked.

(7) Click “OK” when all the settings are right.

(8) Click on the “Office” button.

(9) Click on the “Word Options” button.

(10) Click on “Proofing”.

(11) Go to section “When correcting spelling and grammar in Word”.

(11) In this section, you will see a button that says either “Check Document” or “Recheck Document”. Whatever it says, click this button and Word will clear out all user settings embedded in the file, so that you get a clean file to recheck for spelling and grammar errors.

(12) Word will ask if this is what you really want to do. Click “Yes”.

(13) Click “OK” and you will be returned to the document with all the language settings now reset/clean.

(14) You can create “Quick Access” shortcuts to the windows mentioned above. This makes the whole resetting operation much quicker. The “Quick Access” tool bar can be used to give access to the commands you use most often. A well organised “Quick Access” tool bar can render the ribbon redundant for 99 percent of regular tasks.