Setting Proofing Language for Text in PowerPoint 2010

Do you have a presentation that contains text that needs to be spell-checked in more than one language? Or do you and your client or colleague work with different localized versions of Microsoft PowerPoint? It may be that you use English (US) and color is a perfectly valid spelling -- but someone else in another part of the world uses English (UK) and their spell checker suggest that the word color be changed to colour. Or if they use the French version of PowerPoint, then both spellings of color/colour would be flagged as incorrect -- they use the term couleur. You first need to have the proofing tools installed for all or any of the languages that you need to work within PowerPoint. Then you need to follow these steps:

1. First select the text container you want to alter the proofing for, as shown in Figure 1.
   
   
   Figure 1: Text container selected
   
   
   Tip: A text container is any of these three slide objects that can include text: text placeholders, text boxes, and shapes.

   
   
   
   
   
2. Click the Language option on the Status Bar (highlighted in red in Figure 1).
   
   
   Note: Cannot see the Language option on the Status Bar -- see our Language Options on the Status Bar in PowerPoint 2010 tutorial.

   
   
   
   
   
3. This brings up the Language dialog box that you see in Figure 2.
   
   
   Figure 2: Language dialog box
   
   
4. Scroll down to select an installed Editing Languages -- installed languages can be recognized by the check mark preceding them as shown in Figure 3. Choose the language you want to use for your selected text container. Thereafter click the OK button.
   
   
   Figure 3: Check mark denotes the installed language
   
   
5. You will see that the Language option on the Status Bar has now changed, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 4 (compare with Figure 1).
   
   
   Figure 4: Language option changed on the Status Bar
   
   
6. Similarly, change the language for any other text containers in your presentation.
   

Now when you spell check your slides, the text in the containers will be proofed for the language set for proofing.

Another way of accessing the Language dialog box shown in Figure 2 above is as explained below:

1. First select your text container for which you want to change the proofing language.
   
   
2. Access the Review tab of the Ribbon, and click the Language button highlighted in red in Figure 5.
   
   
   Figure 5: Language button within the Review tab of the Ribbon
   
   
3. This brings up a small drop-down menu shown in Figure 6. Choose the Set Proofing Language option -- this brings up the same Language dialog box that you saw in Figure 2.
   
   
   Figure 6: Set Proofing Language option selected
   
   
4. Make changes to the proofing language, as required -- repeat the process for any other text containers within your presentation.
   
   
5. Save your presentation.

See Also: Setting Proofing Language for Text in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac