How to Change Language in PowerPoint?

We know the pain is real when you create PowerPoint presentations in multiple languages from time to time. You would have experienced the language setting changes while trying to create a PowerPoint presentation in another language besides the one that you usually use.

So, we have developed a comprehensive guide on how to change language in PowerPoint. We will also discuss how to change the language of buttons and menus and install a new language in PowerPoint. Read on to find them all out!

List of contents:

• How to change text language in PowerPoint?
• How to change the language of buttons and menus in Microsoft Office PowerPoint?
• How to add a new language?
• Conclusion

How to change text language in PowerPoint?

The first step in changing language in PowerPoint is to set the text (authoring and proofing) language. There are multiple ways that you can adopt to change the text editing language in PowerPoint. The text editing language will determine the language you use for proofing, i.e. for keeping a tab on your spelling and grammar.  The steps are as follows:

• Start by selecting a piece of text that you want to change.
• You will see the default language of your PowerPoint in the bottom left corner of the PowerPoint window. This will be mostly set as “English (Country)” by default. Click on it while the text is still selected. Instead of going to the bottom left corner, you can still set the proofing language by navigating to the “Review” tab, followed by clicking on the “Language” dropdown under the “Language” group to find the “Set Proofing Language…” option.
• Select the language you plan to use from the list that appears in the pop-up window and click “OK”.

This action has only changed the default language of the text you selected. Some of you might want to just change the language for a particular piece of text and this method would suffice. But, if your intention is to apply this language to the entire presentation, there is more to be done. 

So, here’s how the same editing language can be set for all the elements (text boxes and shapes) within an individual slide:

• Start by selecting a slide.
• Now, select all the elements on the slide using the shortcut “Ctrl + A”.
• While keeping all the elements selected, click on the default language of your PowerPoint in the bottom left corner of the PowerPoint window just like the way we mentioned before. 
• Now, select the language of your preference and hit the “OK” button.

This method is feasible for the ones who want to change the language of just a few slides in the presentation. But, this won’t work if you want to apply it to every slide, especially if it has a large number of slides. For such instances, you can change the language for placeholders across all slides in a PowerPoint presentation. Follow the below-mentioned steps to get it done.

• Head over to the “View” tab on PowerPoint. 
• Choose the “Outline View” option from the left side under the “Presentation Views” group.
• A view pane will appear on the left side with a slide selected. You have to select all the slides from it by using the shortcut “Ctrl + A”.
• Now, go to the “Language” button by navigating to the “Review” tab, followed by clicking on the “Language” dropdown under the “Language” group to find the “Set Proofing Language…” option.
• Just like the previous methods, choose the language you want to use and hit the “Ok” button.

This action changes the language for all placeholder elements on the presentation. This also means that the elements like tagline placeholders, text placeholders, content placeholders, etc. that are defined in the slide master also get altered with this change. But, elements that aren’t included in the slide master like text boxes, shapes, etc. will not be affected by this. You will need to select elements individually and change the language for these few elements that don’t change the language in one go. 

How to change the language of buttons and menus in Microsoft Office PowerPoint?

The language used in buttons, menus, and controls (also known as display language) can be altered by using the following steps. 

• Head over to the “File” tab.
• Go to “Options” listed under “More” on the left side menu.
• Choose “Language” from the left side on the subsequent window that appears. 
• Here, you will be able to choose the default language for your PowerPoint presentation. Click on “Set as Preferred” and hit “OK”.

But, sometimes the language you want to use might not be listed and hence it is necessary to add a new language to PowerPoint. This can be done using the steps from the following section.

How to add a new language?

You can add a language that isn’t there on your PowerPoint presentation by downloading it from the Microsoft Office support page and installing it on your PowerPoint. Normally, you can use the same technique when you are unable to see errors in spelling and grammar on your slides. This happens because the language you use is not installed on PowerPoint yet. So, here’s how you add a new display or proofing language to PowerPoint:

• Head over to the “File” tab.
• Go to “Options” listed under “More” on the left side menu.
• Choose “Language” from the left side on the subsequent window that appears. 
• Choose the “Install additional display languages from Office.com” link and follow the instruction on the page to complete the installation.

These steps will help you with the download and installation of the language you want. Just to keep you informed, the language you selected will be used on the install menus as well.

Conclusion

These were some simple methods to change language in a PowerPoint presentation. Use them according to your use case – a single piece of text, a slide with multiple texts, or even the complete presentation. You can go ahead and install new fonts from Microsoft Office too.