Setting the default language

Problem

PowerPoint keeps switching back to an unwanted language when you add new text. It marks correctly spelled words as mis-spelled.

This can occur because PowerPoint has a built-in default language that we can't alter via the normal menus and buttons.

Solution

Open your presentation, press ALT + F11 to open the VBA editor.

If a window entitled "Immediate" is not already open, press Ctrl+G to open it.

Type this into the Immediate window:

ActivePresentation.DefaultLanguageID =

As soon as you type the = sign, a list of possible language IDs will pop up.

They'll be called things like msoLanguageIDEnglishIreland, for example.

Choose the one you want, then press ENTER to run the code.

Restart PowerPoint, open your file and test to see if that's fixed the problem.

Note that the new language will become the default for the PPT application, not just the current presentation file. But since you now know how to change it back, that should be no problem!

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