Configuring language tools in your word processor

Configuring language tools is important because, if you are using a local version of Microsoft Word, the default settings for your document may not be for English, even though your document is in that language. Follow the instructions below to configure the tools in your word processor and establish suitable default settings for an administrative document in British English. (Note that these guidelines focus on the use of the Catalan version of the desktop program Microsoft Word 2021.)

To create a template with suitable default settings, create a new Microsoft Word document and then follow the steps below.
  1. Maximize the Estils panel on the Inici ribbon to visualize it. Position the pointer over the Normal style and an arrow for a drop-down menu will appear. Right-click on the style to open this menu. Choose Modifica and a dialogue box will open.

  2. Click on the Format button and then on the first item, Tipus de lletra, in the drop-down menu. Here you can choose the default font and its size and colour, among other things. Confirm any changes you make with the Dacord button.

  3. Select Paràgraf from the same drop-down menu. Click the first tab, Sagnia i espaiat, to establish the line spacing, the paragraph spacing, the indentation, the justification and the tabulation positions. Click on the second tab, Salts de línia i pàgina, to avoid single final lines at the top or bottom of a page, and to insert a page break before each paragraph with this style. Confirm all the changes.

  4. Select Llengua, choose anglès (Regne Unit) from the list and make sure the box No revisis l’ortografia ni la gramàtica is unchecked. Confirm those changes. (The spellchecker will only work if it has been installed. If in doubt about this, contact the computer service responsible for your hardware and software maintenance.)

  5. Click on the Anomena i desa button in the Fitxer tab. A dialogue box will appear, in which you can give your document a name, such as admin-en-template1. Then open the drop-down menu for Tipus de fitxer and choose Plantilla de Word (*.dotx) and click on Desa.

Your document format preferences are now saved in your template. To create a new empty document based on these settings, double-click on the template file in a Windows Explorer window, or create a new document based on your template by clicking on Crea. (Templates for many kinds of documents are also available online. Such templates tend to focus on complicated formats, such as tri-fold brochures. For simpler documents with a single flow of text, it is preferable to create your own template, as we describe here.)

To view the spellchecker and grammar checker settings, click on the Fitxer tab at the top on the left and choose Opcions to open the corresponding dialogue box. Then choose Correcció from the menu on the left-hand side. On the right-hand side of the box you can establish settings for document proofing. To turn off as-you-write spell checking, uncheck Revisa l’ortografia a mesura que escric. To turn off grammar checking, uncheck Marca els errors gramaticals a mesura que escric. To choose what kinds of error the grammar checker will identify, open the Estil d’escriptura dialogue box by clicking on the Configuració button. Uncheck boxes for items that you do not want the program to automatically correct. Do not forget the Format automàtic a mesura que escric tab in Opcions de la correcció automàtica, where you can set up the automatic treatment of quotation marks, among other things. When you finish, save your changes and exit the dialogue box. These autocorrect settings are not saved into your template but are associated with your profile as a user on that specific computer.

You can establish various other general settings in the Visualització and Avançades tabs in Opcions del Word.
Darrera actualització: 13-9-2023
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Recommended citation:
«Configuring language tools in your word processor» [en línia]. A: Llibre d’estil de la Universitat de Barcelona. Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona. Serveis Lingüístics. <https://www.ub.edu/llibre-estil/criteri.php?id=2481> [consulta: 28 març 2024].
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