Outlook Express spell check....in French

[14fritz]

My Outlook Express 6.0- the latest version, will only spell check in French. I went into Options and changed it to English. But it automatically goes right back to French.

Any Ideas? Suggestions?

Thanks!

 

[14fritz]

Anyone?

 

[prosaic]

What version of Office do you have installed? Language packs? OS and Service Pack level?

- prosaic

 

[corkyg]

Outlook Express has no built-in spell checker. It parasites off of any Microsoft app that has one. There are also good shareware checkers that work great in OE6 if you are like me and don't have ny Microsoft bloatware installed except for the OS.

Therefore, you need to change whatever Microsoft program it is using.

Do a google search for "Q-Spell."

 

[prosaic]

Outlook Express has no built-in spell checker. It parasites off of any Microsoft app that has one. There are also good shareware checkers that work great in OE6 if you are like me and don't have ny Microsoft bloatware installed except for the OS.

Hence my questions above. But I think 14fritz may have forgotten having posted this thread.

BTW, I like my MS "bloatware".

- prosaic

 

[14fritz]

Thanks for the help. So far Google hasn't helped....

I have Office 2000 installed with no language packs that I am aware of....I don't even speak French! I do have all the latest service packs installed. I am also working with Windows XP SP1.

Any suggestions based on this info?

 

[prosaic]

I can think only a few possibilities, given that you're software and OS are all patched properly.

Disclaimer: I don't use Outlook Express, and I first started using Office with the XP version. So I know almost nothing specific about the two pieces of software we're discussing. Nice, eh?

You said that you you went into Tools | Options in Outlook Express and "changed it to English", meaning the language selection. Do you mean that it actually indicated another language (French, for instance) initially in the settings? If so, I'd have to wonder what caused that indication. If you patched IE (and thereby OE) to SP1 (the browser SP1, not the OS SP1) then are you certain that you didn't apply a French version of the patch? When you go into an Office app (Word might be best for our purposes.) and look under Tools | Languages | Set Language what setting is listed there? (I'm guessing that the Office 2000 menu choices are similar to those in Office XP.) If it isn't English, it should be. I'm trying to figure out how Outlook Express got the idea that it should be using the French dictionary for spell checking. And I'm not even sure about the first possibility I mentioned since, what with the implementation of Unicode and all of this multi-language capability in this OS, I'm not sure there IS actually a French version of the SP1 patch. BTW, while you're in that Tools | Language | Set Language dialog, is the "Detect language automatically" selection checkmarked? If so, you might try unchecking it to see if that makes a difference. I'm thinking that, maybe, it's possible for some specific content that you use in your documents (a signature, perhaps?) that is fooling the spell checker into thinking that it should be using the French dictionary.

A final note. If you've changed the dictionary language and are trying to check documents that were created BEFORE you changed the dictionary choice, my guess is that you're out of luck. I think the change will only apply to documents created AFTER the change was made. This would be due to the way the documents are constructed by Office so that they can be checked. I could be wrong about that, since it is only a surmise based upon limited observation, and NOT upon some super secret knowledge of the inner workings of Office apps.

Good luck!

- prosaic

 

[14fritz]

Thanks again! But none of that worked. I also found in another google search to confirm the regional settings in the control panel....that didn't help either. Everything is set up the way it should be. I checked my installation history....no French patches. No reason ever to even have French anything on my computer.

Any other ideas???

 

[prosaic]

Originally posted by: 14fritz
Thanks again! But none of that worked. I also found in another google search to confirm the regional settings in the control panel....that didn't help either. Everything is set up the way it should be. I checked my installation history....no French patches. No reason ever to even have French anything on my computer.

Any other ideas???

Uh, have you recently pissed off someone who practices Santaria?

Heck, you've got me. What indication, exactly, are you seeing that Outlook Express' spell checking is using a French dictionary? Have you installed any "helper" programs for your mail client? (Some of those include spell checkers. Some of them even use Internet connections to online dictionaries. I'm wondering if that could be your problem.)

Other than that long shot, I'm not sure I can figure what else to check.

- prosaic

 

[Jolt2]

I know for Win9x and Outlook Express 5, that one of the files that is used for spell checking is "Mssp2_en.lex", and this was from an old Office97 install. I believe the "en" in that file is for english. Search your system to see if you have that file. Then search your registry to see if that file is used. Also do a search for the word "dictionary" in your registry. In my registry, that file is listed in: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Proofing Tools\Spelling\1033\Normal]
"Engine"="C:\\Program Files\\Common Files\\Microsoft Shared\\Proof\\MSSP232.DLL"
"Dictionary"="C:\\Program Files\\Common Files\\Microsoft Shared\\Proof\\MSSP2_EN.LEX"

The registry tells what file to use for the spell checks dictionary and were that file is located. If you do not know how to edit the registry, then do not mess with the registry as you could lose the operating system. Your setup of the dictionary may be different with different Microsoft software that you have but this may give you somewere to start with. I found this info out by checking Microsoft support and problems with Outlook spell checker. They don't really tell you anything direct about how spell check works so you kind of have to piece the puzzel together yourself. Good luck to you.