Word 2004: Example of enhancements that would make a big difference (for me)
Posted by Pierre Igot in: MacintoshJanuary 15th, 2004 • 11:24 pm
With the discouraging news about the forthcoming Office 2004 for Mac — more feature creep, no word on any valuable enhancements or bug fixes — I thought I’d give an example of a small, yet significant enhancement that would make life easier for me (and other users, I suspect).
Given that I live in a bilingual country (Canada), I often have to mix English and French in the same text — simply because sometimes I have to refer to English documents that don’t have a French equivalent or vice versa.
Word X does have multilingual capabilities, but, as is typically the case with Microsoft, they are rather poorly implemented. Although the “Language” setting is actually something that can be applied at the level of character formatting (i.e. it behaves like a character style), the “Language…” command is located in the “Tools” menu, so the end user doesn’t realize how it works.
I have, of course, customized my Word X environment to a great extent, and put the “Language…” command where it belongs. I’ve also created several styles in my templates that include language settings. For example, I have a “Book Title – English UK” character style which, when applied to a phrase in a document whose default language is Canadian French, not only puts the phrase in italics, as befits a book title, but also applies the “English UK” language setting to it.
This way, when I do a spell check on the document, Word checks the book titles formatted with this style using the English UK dictionary rather than the Canadian French dictionary it uses for the rest of the text.
The problem with all this is the language setting is invisible and that, in spite of my best efforts to customize Word X, I have not found a way to simply display the language of the selection or of the location where the insertion point is. If I want to know what the language is at any time, I have to go to the “Language…” command, select the command, look at the language setting in the dialog box that appears, and then close the dialog box without using it. In other words, I have to use a command that’s intended to set the language in order to view the language setting. This is not right. There should be a way to display the current language at any given point, much in the same way that the “Styles” control in the formatting toolbar displays the current style at any given point.
Speaking of which, Word really needs two separate controls: one that displays the current paragraph style, and one that displays the current character style (if any). The fact that the same area is used to display both is yet another example of poor feature implementation. A phrase that has a character style always has a paragraph style as well! Right now, it’s impossible to see the paragraph style of a phrase that also has a character style, because the character style “supersedes” the paragraph style setting in the toolbar.
These are improvements that are badly needed in Word. And yet, there is no sign that the Microsoft MacBU is listening to any of this. Instead, they keep on claiming that they have “a great grasp of what Mac users want“.
Yeah right.
January 28th, 2005 at Jan 28, 05 | 1:11 pm
Found your site trying to discover where and how I could acquire, download, install the French Dictionary for Office 2004. I have the English version and, like yourself, use both French and English. Would like to know how to set up changing dictionaries English <-> French according to the language of the document I’m composing…
Jesse Semple
January 28th, 2005 at Jan 28, 05 | 2:02 pm
“Changing dictionaries” is actually fairly straightforward. Even though the interface is thoroughly confusing and non-intuitive (as usual), language is just another character-level formatting setting in Word. So you can apply a language to a paragraph or phrase or word by just selecting it and applying the language to it. You get no visual feedback at all (language formatting is “invisible”), but the language setting stays “attached” to the text range. Then when you spell check your document, Word automatically uses the dictionary for the language of the text range.
Obtaining the French dictionary, on the other hand, is something that has not always been easy. But in recent versions of Office, multiple dictionaries are included, even on the US version of the software. In Office X, you had to run the “Value Pack” installer and select the additional “proofing tools” that you wanted. In Office 2004, if I remember correctly, you have to do a custom install.
If you’ve already applied updates (Service Releases, etc.) to your original Office 2004, then after you install the additional language packages from the original CD, you should reapply the updaters, to make sure the language modules are updated as well (if the updater updates them).
Hope this helps.
January 28th, 2005 at Jan 28, 05 | 2:52 pm
Yes, this helps a lot. I had performed the Custom Install, but didn’t know how to configure so that I coud get at the dictionaries. I thought there had to be a place where you’d browse for the dictionary you wanted to use. I never found it.
Got it working…
Thanks
January 29th, 2005 at Jan 29, 05 | 2:41 am
Got it working in WORD 2004, but my iBook runs WORD X and I can’t seem to get it to work. The proofing tools are on the same path MS Office > Shared Applications > Proofing Tools. There are fewer French tools in WORD X than in 2004. Only French Grammer, French Spelling, French Thesaurus. In 2004, there are many more French tools. Don’t know if this is just feature creep or I’m missing something.
Leaving for France in a month.
January 29th, 2005 at Jan 29, 05 | 3:01 am
For Word X, I would suggest you reinstall Office X from the original CD, then install the French proofing tools using the Value Pack installer on the original CD, then apply the necessary updates.
My old install of Office X has the following tools:
French Dictionary1
French Dictionary2
French Grammar
French Grammar Dictionary1
French Grammar Dictionary2
French Grammar Help
French Grammar Parameter
French Grammar Reference
French Hyphen Dictionary
French Hyphenation
French Spelling
French Thesaurus
French Thesaurus Dictionary
If you don’t have all these files, your install is incomplete and you should reinstall from scratch.
January 29th, 2005 at Jan 29, 05 | 3:55 am
So X has the same files as 2004. These are my Word 2004 files (below):
French Dictionary1
French Dictionary2
French Grammar
French Grammar Dictionary1
French Grammar Dictionary2
French Grammar Help
French Grammar Parameter
French Grammar Reference
French Hyphen Dictionary
French Hyphenation
French Spelling
French Thesaurus
French Thesaurus Dictionary
So I am missing something. Will have to reinstall.