Excel for Mac: Switching Languages

This week in our series about Microsoft Excel for Mac, we show how you can switch Excel from one language to another.  The great news is that it’s incredibly easy.

Why would I want to switch languages?

Maybe you’re just trying to learn a different language or maybe you have to show something to colleagues and want to do it in their preferred language.  Whatever the case, Excel for Mac makes it very easy to switch back and forth in just a few seconds.

Windows – set within the applications

In Excel, Word and PowerPoint on Windows, you control the language settings from within the applications.  You can go into the Language section on Options and 'Add a Language'.  This will set the language for all of the Office applications, which involves waiting for a download and then restarting your application.

Once you have the language installed, you can switch back and forth between languages by moving them up or down in the list or click the ‘Set as Preferred’ button.  Anytime you make a change, you’ll need to restart the application for it to take effect.

Mac makes it a bit easier

To change the language in Microsoft’s apps on Mac, you won’t find the option within the apps and there’s no need to download and install any new components.  Also, you can switch the language for just one of the apps if you want or you can switch for your entire computer.  It’s easy and very flexible, and it’s controlled by the Mac system settings.

Set in Mac system settings

To change the language for your apps, you have 2 choices – either change just a specific app or change your entire Mac.  If you change the entire Mac language, all the applications will follow your choice.  If you want to change only one specific application, then follow these steps:

1. Go to your Mac system settings
2. Choose 'Language & Region'
3. Scroll down to the Applications section
4. Click the + button to add an application
5. Pick Microsoft Excel.app from the list of applications on your computer
6. Pick the language you want to use from the language pop-up menu

Then press Add, and you’re finished.

Your Mac will ask if you want to relaunch the application, and you can either allow it to do that for you, or you can do it yourself.  The language of Excel won’t switch until you relaunch the application.

Once you have Excel in the list of Applications in the ‘Language & Region’ settings, you can simply pick the language from the pop-up menu next to Excel to switch back and forth as needed.

The chosen language will take effect the next time you relaunch the app.  As you can see here, the menus and Ribbon of Excel are shown after setting the language to French.

We hope you found this useful.  Check back for more details about Excel for Mac and how it’s different from Excel for Windows.