How to force Word to use the right dictionary?

GiHem · #1 11-19-2017, 06:48 AM

Hi the forum
In a VBA routine, I highlight spelling mistakes in yellow

Code:

For Each rngSpellError In ActiveDocument. SpellingErrors
    rngSpellError. HighlightColorIndex = wdYellow
Next rngSpellError

In a document written in several languages, Word does not always affect the correct dictionary.
Example
Greetings to someone: Jemanden begrüße
I greet you: Ich grüße Sie
Good tomorrow Guten Morgen! (bis Mittag)
Good afternoon Guten Tag (zwischen 12:00 und 18:00 Uhr)

the left colomn is marked as written in German.

Could a member of this forum advise me to force, in VBA, Word to refer to the right dictionary and not mark a correctly written words as wrong?
Thank you in advance
GiHem

gmaxey · #2 11-19-2017, 07:09 AM

Have you applied the correct proofing language to the words in question? If not, how can you expect Word to know which language to use?

GiHem · #3 11-19-2017, 09:40 AM

Hi gmaxey,
Thank you for your response.
I work mainly in Dutch and German; the respective dictionaries of which are available.
The "detect language automatically" checkbox is checked.
Isn't that enough, or do I need to specify the language of each word manually?
GiHem

gmayor · #4 11-19-2017, 11:58 PM

Detect language automatically is notoriously unreliable and should be switched off. Every character in a document can have its own proofing language attribute, so ensure that the words you want to check have the appropriate proofing language applied. This is best achieved with paragraph and/or character styles.

gmaxey · #5 11-20-2017, 07:16 AM

Second Graham's advice.

I applied German language to your German words, ran your macro and it seemed to work as intended.

GiHem · #6 11-21-2017, 06:07 AM

Hi gmayor,
Thank you for your interesting answer.
I had for a long time noticed that automatic language detection was not 100% reliable.
Even when creating a style (linked paragraph and character) dedicated to a language (in my case, German), the result is not 100% guaranteed.
Manual intervention is therefore still required.
GiHem

GiHem · #7 11-21-2017, 06:21 AM

Hi gmaxey,
Thanks for the answer.
The code works fine if MS Word detects the spelling errors.
A simple test: copy an article from a German newspaper into an MS Word document. There should be no mistakes.
Select the text; change it in lower case and then in sentence case.
You will notice that, sometimes, MS Word does not find errors when all the nouns are misspelled.
GiHem

GiHem · #8 11-21-2017, 07:17 AM

I have a practical supplementary question: how do I apply the code from the original thread to a selected portion of text and not to the entire document?
Thank you in advance
GiHem

GiHem · #9 11-21-2017, 03:02 PM

I have found out how to know if a portion of text is selected.

Code:

Select Case Selection.Type
Case wdSelectionNormal
MsgBox "there is a selection"
Case Else
MsgBox "there is no selection"
End Select

But I still don't know how to apply a code to this selection and not to the whole document.
Could a member of this forum help me.
Thank you in advance.
GiHem

gmaxey · #10 11-21-2017, 03:07 PM

Code:

Sub ScratchMacro()
'A basic Word macro coded by Greg Maxey, http://gregmaxey.com/word_tips.html, 11/21/2017
Dim rngSpellError
For Each rngSpellError In Selection.Range.SpellingErrors
    rngSpellError.HighlightColorIndex = wdYellow
Next rngSpellError
lbl_Exit:
  Exit Sub
End Sub

GiHem · #11 11-25-2017, 12:39 AM

Hi gmaxey,
Thank's for your answer and sorry for the late reaction.
The proposed solution suits me (almost) completely.
The only problem that remains for documents with a lot of pages is the slow execution of the "For"loop.
GiHem

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