By default, Microsoft Word uses your system language as the default when you are writing or editing a document. For example, if your system language is English, Word uses it as the default language for writing or authoring & proofing. For a vast majority of users, this is all you need. However, there might be situations where you need to change the default language in Word. For example, maybe you write in English (UK) whereas your system language is English (US). Or, maybe you are bilingual and want to write in your mother tongue by default.
Whatever your specific reason is, if you need to, you can quite easily set a default language of your choice in Word. Once set, Word automatically lets you write and proofread in that language as soon as you open a document.
In this quick and straightforward Word how-to guide, I will show the steps to change the language in Word. Let’s get started.
Before You Begin
- The steps shown below are tested to work in Microsoft Word 2013, 2016, 2019, and 365.
- This tutorial shows how to change the language in which you write or edit a document. Not the display language.
Change default language in Word
- Open the Start menu.
- Search and open “Word“.
- Click the “File” option.
- Select “Options” from the sidebar.
- Click the “Language” option on the sidebar.
- Select the language of your choice in the “Office authoring languages and proofing” section.
- If you don’t see your language, click the “Add a language” button.
- Select a language from the list.
- Click “Add“.
- Select the language in the main window.
- Click “OK“.
- Click “OK” in the information prompt.
- Restart Word to apply changes.
- With that, you’ve changed the default language in Word.
Detailed Steps (With Screenshots)
First, open the Word application. To do that, you can either search for “Word” in the Start menu or open any Word document of your choice.
After opening, click the “File” option and select “Options” on the sidebar.
Note: On small screens, you need to expand the “More” menu to see “Options”.
In the options window, go to the “Languages” tab on the sidebar. Now, select the language under the “Office authoring languages and proofing” section.
If you cannot find the language of your choice, you have to add it manually. To do that, click the “Add a language” button.
From the list of languages, select the language you want to add to Word and click the “Add” at the bottom.
As soon as you do that, the language is added to the list of available languages in the “Office authoring languages and proofing” section. Select the newly added language and click the “OK” button.
As soon as you press the button, Word will ask you to restart the application. Click the “OK” button and then restart the Word application.
That is it with that, you’ve successfully changed the default writing language in Word. From now on, whenever you open a document to write or edit, Word uses the new language by default.
Quickly Switch Languages in Word
When you have multiple languages installed in Word, it will show the language option on the bottom bar. You can use it to switch between languages quickly. Here’s how.
First, click on the “Language” option on the bottom bar. The option will display the name of your current language.
Next, select the language of your choice from the list of available languages and click “OK“. If you want to set the newly chosen language as the default, click the “Set As Default” button instead.
That is all. It is that simple to switch languages in Word when using multiple languages.
Wrapping Up — Changing Default Language in Word
As you can see, thanks to the built-in options, it is quite easy to choose a new default language in Word. If the language is not available readily, use the “Add a language” option first add the language to Word and then select it. As I’ve shown, when using multiple languages, you can use the “Language” option at the bottom to quickly switch between languages and even set a new default language as and when needed.
If you have any questions or need help, comment below. I’ll be happy to help.