Topics in this chapter   Unicode Support and Multilingual Documents     Taking Advantage of Unicode Support     Changing Language Settings     Removing Multilingual User Interface Files     Managing Language Settings for Each Application

Managing Language Settings for Each Application

Microsoft Office XP stores language settings in the LanguageResources subkey of the Windows registry. Office sets default language settings when an Office application runs for the first time after being installed. You can also specify or change language settings rather than let Office use default settings.

When Office applications run, they look up entries in the LanguageResources subkey to determine language-related default behavior. You can determine the effects on an Office application of changing a language setting by reviewing the information in this topic.

How language settings affect Office applications

Although each Office XP language setting has a specific purpose, Office applications reference these settings to change application behavior in different ways. In general, these settings define application behavior as follows:

• Install Language: Sets defaults for Office applications and documents.
  
  
• User Interface Language: Determines language used by menus and dialogs.
  
  
• Help Language: Determines language used for end-user Help.
  
  
• Editing Languages: Exposes functionality for editing documents in those particular languages.

Office XP sets these four language categories by default. However, you can specify or change the settings. For more information about changing language settings, see Changing Language Settings.

In addition, some applications use the SKU language setting to determine some behavior. This language setting is based on the original Office SKU that was installed and cannot be modified.

How Office applications use language settings

Each Office application can interpret language settings differently in determining language-related default behavior specific to that application.

Word

Microsoft Word 2002 uses language settings as described below.

Install Language

• Determines which Normal.dot file is used. If you have a customized Normal.dot template, your changes are lost when you modify the Install Language setting.
  
  
• Determines which Toolbar registry is used.
  
  
• Determines which preferences settings registry is used.
  
  
• Determines which bullets and numbering preset gallery is used.

User Interface Language

• Has no effects other than to change the language of the user interface.

Help Language

• Has no effects other than to change the language of Help text.

Editing Languages:

• Exposes additional user interface.
  
  
• Used by Language AutoDetect to narrow possibilities to detect languages.

SKU Language

• Is not used by Word 2002.

Excel

Microsoft Excel 2002 uses language settings as described below.

Install Language

• Controls whether Excel supports features specific for working primarily with East Asian content.
  
  
• If an East Asian install language is enabled, offers additional East Asian features (such as phonetic info, non-Gregorian calendar parsing, and string functions), different assumptions (more country-specific fallbacks for font handling), different default number formats, and Visual Basic for Applications backwards compatibility with native language versions of Excel.

  An East Asian install language should be chosen only if the primary language to be used is Asian.

  With any install language, Excel supports Input Method Editors and East Asian fonts. However, an East Asian install language is more aggressive in choosing fonts and defaults that match native language versions of Excel.

User Interface Language

• Has no effects other than to change the language of the user interface.

Help Language

• Has no effects other than to change the language of Help.

Editing Languages

• Is not used by Excel 2002.

SKU Language

• Is not used by Excel 2002.

PowerPoint

Microsoft PowerPoint 2002 uses language settings as described below.

Install Language

• When used with East Asian values, has the following effects:
  • Sets the default state of the Input Method Editor to "on."
    
    
  • Adds "composite" font structure to the Format | Font dialog and default East Asian font values.
    
    
  • Adds toolbar buttons.
    
    
  • Turns on and sets linguistic feature defaults.

    For example, setting the Installation Language to Japanese causes PowerPoint to use Asian rules for controlling first and last characters.

  • Affects font list sorting in the font lists (in the font toolbar control on the formatting toolbar, as well as the Format | Font dialog).
    
    
  • Converts backslash to a Yen when Install Language is Japanese.
  
  
  
• When set to a language that has bidirectional values, has the following effects:
  
  
  • Adds "composite" font structure to the Format | Font dialog and default bidirectional fonts.
    
    
  • Determines the default text direction behavior and default view orientation behavior.
    
    
  • Sets the default state of the Auto-Keyboard switching option to "on"; otherwise, the default state is "off."
  
  
  
• Changes Design Template behavior depending upon the Install Language value.

  You can create Design Templates with a single set of defaults (a "global" template). Based on the Install Language, PowerPoint uses plug-in user interface support to insert the correct text defaults in the template.

• Affects the default behavior of the document.

  For example, if the language is set to an East Asian language, a presentation will have East Asian defaults. This includes default fonts, East Asian typography rules, and so on.

• Used as the tie-breaker in certain cases to manage font conversion for East Asian (but non-Japanese) text in PowerPoint 4.0 files.
  
  
• Determines vertical underline behavior for East Asian languages.

  For example, with Chinese (either Traditional or Simplified), the vertical underline is on the left, and for Korean or Japanese, the vertical underline is on the right.

• Determines the default language used for date formats and the types of calendars available.
  
  
• Used as the default language tag for text when converting previous presentations (PowerPoint 3.0 and 4.0, and PowerPoint 95) that did not have a language tag.
  
  
• Determines if font names for East Asian fonts are handled by using their English name or their localized name.

  When the Installation Language is set to an East Asian language, PowerPoint expects East Asian font names to be localized. When the Installation Language is set to a non-East Asian language, PowerPoint expects East Asian font names to be in English.

• Determines the success of displaying non-ANSI characters during file sharing operations with others using older versions of PowerPoint.

  For example, setting the Install Language to Greek allows Greek characters written on the Slide Master to be saved in PowerPoint 95 format. The Greek PowerPoint 95 user can view and edit the Greek characters correctly. The presentation can then be opened again in PowerPoint 2002 with the Greek characters included properly on the slide master.

• Helps to fix language variation conflicts (for example, French vs. French/Canadian) in Content Templates when those templates are opened in File | New or by the AutoContent Wizard.
  
  
• Used as the default text language for new text objects on new presentations if the user has not set the default language in Tools | Language.
  
  
• Used as a tie-breaker for determining the text language identifier (LID) for Language Autodetect integration with plain-text pasting.
  
  
• Determines which localized bullet schemes appear in the Format | Bullets and Numbering dialog.
  
  
• Causes Blank.pot (if it exists) to be renamed to Oldblank.pot when Installation Language changes.
  
  
• If the Installation Language or the system locale is set to Japanese, lists the JIS paper sizes in the File | Page Setup dialog.
  
  
• Determines the order of font slots displayed in the Format|Font dialog.

  If the Installation Language is set to an East Asian language, the font list displays East Asian fonts first in the list.

• Determines the correct defaults for Style Checker options for East Asian and some European languages.

  The defaults are set as follows:

  • The correct value for Slide Title Style is Sentence case (0x01) instead of "Title case" (0x04).

    Languages affected: Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, French/Canadian, Greek, Hungarian, Iberian Portuguese, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, Spanish (Modern Sort), Swedish

  • The correct value for Number of fonts should not exceed: is 0x04 instead of 0x03.

    Languages affected: Japanese, Korean, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese

  • The correct value for Body punctuation is 0x00 instead of 0x01.

    Languages affected: Korean, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese (but not Japanese)

User Interface Language

• Has no effects other than to change the language of the user interface

Help Language

• Has no effects other than to change the language of the Help text.

Editing Languages

• If enabled, may expose additional user interface in PowerPoint.

  For example, these languages add extra controls to the user interface:

• East Asian (Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, and Korean)
  
  
• Complex Scripts (including bidirectional languages, such as Arabic and Hebrew, and other Complex Scripts languages, such as Thai and Hindi)
  
  
• Influences font association conversions if Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, and Korean editing languages are set.
  
  
• If you enable editing languages other than code page 1252 languages (that is, code pages for languages that are not in the Western European code page) and you are creating Presentation Broadcast lobby pages, then the lobby pages will use Numeric Character References (NCRs) for the text.

  For example, if you enable Greek (code page 1253) and you create lobby pages, the lobby pages will use NCRs for the text.

• If enabled, causes date formats for those languages to appear in the Insert | Date and Time dialog.

Note   Setting East Asian editing languages does not influence Input Method Editor default startup behavior and does not change document defaults.

SKU Language

• The SKU Language LCID is used as a parameter in the URL that procures the Viewer from the Microsoft Office Web site using the Pack and Go Wizard.

System locale

• Used as a tie-breaker in determining text language identifiers for Language Autodetect integration with plain-text pasting.
  
  
• Determines which fonts should not be embedded during font embedding operations, preventing the default fonts typically used in that locale from being embedded.

Access

Microsoft Access 2002 uses language settings as described below.

Install Language

• Used to expose Japanese-specific properties and enable wizards specific to East Asian languages.
  
  
• Sets the default speller dictionary language according to the Install Language setting.

User Interface Language

• Makes Japanese and other East Asian wizards available when the user interface language (or the operating system language) is the corresponding East Asian language.

Help Language

• Has no effects other than to change the language of the Help text.

Editing Languages

• Is not used by Access 2002.

SKU Language

• Is not used by Access 2002.

System Locale

• Used to determine default datasheet fonts and default sort order for the database.

Outlook

Microsoft Outlook 2002 uses language settings as described below.

Install Language

• Determines default speller in Tools | Options | Spelling.

User Interface Language

• Has no effects other than to change the language of the user interface.

Help Language

• Has no effects other than to change the language of the Help text.

Editing Languages

• Makes additional Mail encodings available.
  
  
• Makes additional property page available in Tools | Options with miscellaneous RTL and Bidi calendar settings (for Arabic and Hebrew).

SKU Language

• Is not used by Outlook.

FrontPage

Microsoft FrontPage 2002 uses language settings as described below.

Install Language

• Is not used by FrontPage.

User Interface Language

• Changes the language of the user interface text.
  
  
• Determines the language of the templates FrontPage loads for a new page or Web site.

Help Language

• Changes the language of the Help text.
  
  
• Changes the language for other files linked to from inside FrontPage (such as Microsoft Office Web site files).

Editing Languages

• Exposes additional user interface.

SKU Language

• Is not used by FrontPage.

Default System Code Page

• Determines which character set will be supported for opening and saving since FrontPage does not support Unicode file names.

User Locale

• Sets the default speller.

Input Locale

• Used to determine the language and encoding of a page.

In general, when the page language is different from the input locale, FrontPage uses language settings to span that difference with language information.

Publisher

Microsoft Publisher 2002 uses language settings as described below.

Install Language

• Enables helpful pointers (cursors).
  
  
• Allows Japanese crop marks.
  
  
• Affects the default justification options that appear in Publisher menus and on the formatting toolbar.
  
  
• Adjusts Input Method Editor (IME) status to text flow.
  
  
• If set to an East Asian language, controls whether an IME is enabled.
  
  
• Sets date and time format for print marks.
  
  
• Sets default business card size.
  
  
• Sets default font size, paragraph alignment, tab stop, bullet font, and bullet characters.
  
  
• Used as the Language Control Identifier (LCID) applied to text in some cases where the text file format does not contain language information.
  
  
• Used as a tie-breaker for some features when multiple East Asian languages are installed.

  Determines the defaults for some text formatting preferences, including East Asian hanging punctuation default and character-spacing control (CSC) default.

• Controls the exposure of Simplified Chinese–named font sizes.

Editing Language

• Controls the exposure of East Asian formatting features (such as Ruby and Text Direction).
  
  
• Enables East Asian proofing tools.
  
  
• Enables East Asian font and formatting properties in the font dialog.
  
  
• Enables complex Script features and options.

User Interface Language

• Sets language for Publisher wizards, font schemes, and color schemes.

  Japanese-specific wizards are only available with a Japanese user interface.

Help Language

• Has no effect other than to change the language of the Help text.

Web locale

• Has no functionality specific to Publisher.

SKU language

• Has no functionality specific to Publisher.

System locale

• Has no functionality specific to Publisher.

User locale

• Changes the Calendar format.

Input locale

• Default input locale determines the default text language for new text frames.
  
  
• As the user types, current input locale/keyboard is used to assign language to text.