Changing the Language of Comment Boxes

Mary Anne edits academic texts. She is Canadian, as are most of her clients. She therefore sets all documents in Canadian English. However, she discovered that in Track Changes comment boxes are still in U.S. English. Mary Anne wonders how she can change the comment boxes to Canadian English.

The solution to this question is rooted in the way in which Word uses styles. All the text that Word creates is formatted through the use of styles. The text in comment boxes is no exception. You can modify the appropriate styles related to comments by following these general steps:

1. Display either the Styles dialog box or the Styles and Formatting pane, depending on your version of Word. (How you do this has been covered many times in other issues of WordTips.)
2. Use the controls in the dialog box or the pane to display all the styles used by Word.
3. Use the controls to modify the three styles used for comments: Comment Text, Comment Reference, and Comment Subject. You can set the language used for each of these.
4. Close the Styles dialog box or the Styles and Formatting pane.

That's it. Change the styles, and Word changes how it treats the text formatted with those styles. You'll particularly want to pay attention to the Comment Text style; it is this style that is used for the text shown within comment boxes.