Tony, I am excited to hear that it is possible! Are you using Word 2003?
Inspired by this thread I have just installed OpenOffice and it works
straight away (marks color as badly spelled.) I've opened a single (Word)
document that I know contains drawings and art and tables and it opened
perfectly. I think I may have found the *easy* solution.

"Tony Jollans" wrote:

I am in the UK. My regional settings are UK. I don't have the problems you
seem to have. I do, however, agree with you that most software (MS and
other) is US-centric.

--
Enjoy,
Tony


"Ant" wrote in message
...
There are two salient points here. Firstly you are implying that I have
accidentally somehow applied English (U.S.) to the new document so that I
get
both US and UK English. I have opened a new document and that is the
situation. Is there a way that I can get a new document to open in that
state?

Secondly, and probably more importantly, your regional settings are US. I
am 100% convinced that all you are describing would work if my home
settings
were US and not UK. I don't believe Word has been tested with UK regional
settings.


"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

If I apply a language in a document, the language appears above the line
(in
the MRU list) for that Word session. If I restart Word, only English
(U.S.)
remains there.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"Tony Jollans" No Mail wrote in message
...
The languages which show above the line are the ones you have enabled.

Close all Office applications.

Go to Start All Programs Microsoft Office Microsoft Office Tools

Microsoft Office 2003 Language Settings

Disable US English (and enable/disable any other languages you want)
on
the
Enabled Language tab.

You should see the results next time you use Word.
--
Enjoy,
Tony


"Ant" wrote in message
...
Yes, English (U.K.) is selected and so is English (U.S.).
Below that is a double line and below that many other languages that
are
not
selected.
In fact, what do you mean by selected? Both UK and US have an icon
on
the
left with ABC and tick. Only UK has a dark grey background.

I tried 'specialize' and 'defense' too and it told me that both were
spelled
correctly.
custom.dic contains 92 words, none of them color.
I appreciate your help but get very frustrated that a simple
spelling
check
does not work.

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

When you select the word "color" and go to Tools | Language | Set
Language,
is English (U.K.) selected? If so, then that spelling is accepted
by
the
UK
English proofing tools. If you want to disallow this spelling, you
can
exclude it. See
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/General/Ex...ordFromDic.htm

FWIW, if I type "color" here and then select the word and apply
"English
(U.K.)" as the language, it is marked as misspelled. Perhaps
"color"
has
been added to your Custom.dic?

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"Ant" wrote in message
...
Yes. Which is fine if the language is Chinese but wrong if the
language
is a
variant of the rest of the document.
But my real problem is that if I open Word and type the word
Color
it
does
not mark it as a bad spelling. Even after having followed every
instruction
to remove US from regional and Office settings. If someone could
show
me
how
to work around that 'bad' behaviour I could accept that pasted
text
is
not
checked in the language of the rest of the document. It's not
what
I
want
though of course.

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

Any time you open a document in which a different language is
used,
or
when
you paste in text from such a document, you will be using the
proofing
tools
for that language. When you paste in text, the language at the
insertion
point is the language of the pasted selection; if you continue
typing at
that point without changing the language, you will be using
those
proofing
tools.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to
the
newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"Ant" wrote in message
...
I do not have, and for a long time have not had, US in my
regional
settings.
As explained in
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister/LangFmt.htm
"You'll also still have problems with the document reverting
back
to
the
"bad" language while editing. There is no way to get rid of
this
problem
in
an existing file, short of recreating the file."
So it is not just one unlucky user with this problem.


"Graham Mayor" wrote:

I have already told you earlier in the thread how to stop
Word
from
checking
with US spellings.
To Remove the US regional settings
Control panel regional and language options languages

details -
select UK and delete US. It will be removed next time you
reboot.

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org



Ant wrote:
Please tell me how to remove the US English settings
then.
Is
it
a
registry key change?

"Graham Mayor" wrote:

Of course you can. My PC is set up for UK English and I
have
no
US
English set up in the regional settings.

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org


Ant wrote:
Graham,
For other languages you are right, but for English
English
for
England this is not correct. You can not remove the
US
English
for
America setting. Antony
PS I would dearly love this bug to be fixed.

"Graham Mayor" wrote:

The default language for Word is that set in Windows
regional
settings. Word will only spell check using the
language
defined
for
the text - see tools language set language (set
to UK
English
or whatever) and uncheck the box 'Detect language
automatically'.

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org


jeamsu wrote:
I wish to remove the us english settings from my MS
word,
so
that
if I type say 'color' by mistake that it will not
accept
it as
a
correct word. It should give me 'colour' as the
correct
spelling.