Changing the default language setting does not appear to work in PowerPoint 2000 (226787)

SYMPTOMS

You can change the default language in Microsoft PowerPoint 2000 by clicking Language on the Tools menu, selecting any of the languages listed, and then clicking Default. You are then asked the following question:

Do you want to change the default language to Language? This will affect the active presentation and all future presentations.

However, you may notice that even if you click Yes to answer this question, new text boxes that you create in PowerPoint may not use the language that you have selected as the default language.

CAUSE

Microsoft changed the default language and keyboard interaction in PowerPoint 2000 to more closely resemble Microsoft Word 2000. PowerPoint automatically detects the Language property of your keyboard. This Language property overrides the default language setting in PowerPoint.

For example, if you have the default language set to German inside PowerPoint, and you use a Spanish keyboard layout when you type text, PowerPoint marks the new text as Spanish, not German.

PowerPoint only uses its default language setting when you type text that has no associated language setting into a presentation. This includes text pasted from programs that do not use the Language property in the way that Microsoft Office 2000 does, as well as plain text pasted into PowerPoint or inserted as an outline from a text (.txt) file.

For example, if you have the default language set to German inside PowerPoint, and you use a Spanish keyboard layout when you type text, if you copy a portion of text from Microsoft Notepad into PowerPoint, PowerPoint marks the text as German, not Spanish.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Microsoft Office 2000. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

276367 OFF2000: How to Obtain the Latest Office 2000 Service Pack

To create new text boxes with a different language ID, or to swap between language IDs when you create text boxes in your presentation, follow these steps:

Click Start, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel.
Double-click the Keyboard icon. Click the Language tab of the Keyboard Properties dialog box.
Your default language is listed in the Installed keyboard languages and layouts list. Click Add.
Select the language that you want from the drop-down list in the Add Language window. When you are finished, click OK. Use this method to add as many languages as you need to the Installed keyboard languages and layouts list.

NOTE: You may select any one of these languages and click Set as Default to make this language the default language that is set every time you start Windows.
Make sure that the Enable indicator on taskbar check box is selected, and then click OK.
You may be prompted to insert your Windows installation CD-ROM, and you may also be prompted to restart your computer. When finished, start PowerPoint.
To change language IDs, click the language indicator on the Windows taskbar and then click the keyboard layout that you want.

New text boxes are now formatted with the selected Language ID.

NOTE: When you change the keyboard layout, the placement of certain characters changes on your keyboard. For example, if you change the keyboard setting from English to Spanish, the left-bracket key [ becomes an apostrophe '. To view the changed keyboard layouts, use the Visual Keyboard utility, which you can obtain from the following Microsoft Web site:

http://office.microsoft.com/downloads/2000/viskeyboard.aspx