Language tools > Spell check > Conversion to the new German spelling

As you may have already noticed, Write offers two entries for German in lists for selecting the language:

▪"German (Germany)" stands for the new spelling (according to the 1996 German spelling reform in its last revision in 2006).

▪"German (Germany, old)", on the other hand, stands for the old spelling.

The same applies to "German (Austria)" and "German (Switzerland)".

Thus, you can decide for yourself whether you would prefer to use the old or the new German spelling:

Using the old spelling

If you select the language "German (Germany, old)", the spell check, hyphenation and thesaurus will continue to follow the old spelling rules.

Using the new spelling

If you want to write documents in the new German spelling, on the other hand, select the language "German (Germany)". In this case, the aforementioned function Check spelling as you type will provide you with a useful tool if desired:

If you use the dialog box to enable the option Underline old German spellings in blue, a blue underline is added to all words that correspond to the old German spelling but should be written differently according to the new spelling.

If you right-click on such a word, you will be offered the permitted spellings. You can also find out why this word should be spelled differently – and thus refresh your knowledge of the new spelling rules.

For more information on this topic, see the following pages.