How to Change the Applied Language:
An important thing to understand is that Nisus Writer treats language like any other text formatting (eg: font). In other words, you can have multiple languages applied in a single document. Changing the language for one bit of text will not affect the language for the rest of your document.

To change the language applied to your text, first select the text (or style) whose language you'd like to change. Then use any one of the following language controls (if you do not see your language, please read how to change which languages are available):

1. The menu "Format > Language":

2. The "Language" palette, which is available by default, or via the menu "Window > Palettes":

3. The Language toolbar item:

4. The language tag at the bottom-right of every document window:

Tip: Keyboard Shortcuts:
If you often need to switch between languages, you may want to take the time to assign custom keyboard shortcuts to languages you frequently use. Just visit Nisus Writer's "Menu Key" preferences, where you may assign any shortcut to any menu. Or if you are using Nisus Writer Pro, you could install our Cycle Languages macro, which allows a single menu (and hence keyboard shortcut) to toggle through a configurable list of languages.

Tip: Use Styles
Because languages are a kind of formatting, you can apply languages to your styles (eg: the "Normal" paragraph style) just as you would other kinds of formatting.

Language of New Documents:
When you create a new document, Nisus Writer uses the language found in your "Nisus New File" template. To change that language, please visit Nisus Writer's "New File" preference pane:


An Unwanted Language Still Appears:
Even after you've applied the desired language to your text, you may find that an unwanted language sometimes reappears. There are a few ways that an unwanted language can be introduced into your document.

Langauge-Sensitive Options:
Once a language has been applied to some text, Nisus Writer customizes many things (eg: the spelling dictionary) based on that applied language. Please see this FAQ for an explanation of all language options that can be configured.

Keyboard Layouts:
The keyboard layout, which controls which letters/character are produced when you type, is a distinct setting from the language:
In general, you will want to let Nisus Writer change the keyboard layout automatically as you change the language. You can configure that behavior in your Nisus Writer language preferences. If you want to know more, please read this FAQ on the difference between language and keyboard layout.