167 lines
18 KiB
Markdown
167 lines
18 KiB
Markdown
# Localization parity with Microsoft Word
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> **Last reviewed:** 2026-10-10 · **Last updated:** 2026-10-12 · **Change:** minor (Turkish interface catalog completed, 2,325 entries, #774; previously minor: Hungarian interface added; previously trivial: region: a saved choice in Options, Unix conventions each from its own locale, the browser's locale on the web, en-US for runs without preferences, #838 review; previously minor: new documents follow the system region: A4 or Letter, centimetres or inches, the region's decimal separator, #838; previously minor: Polish interface; previously minor: font list shows fonts by their names in the interface language, #505; previously minor: Turkish interface added; previously major: first version; catalogs measured from `crates/ui-egui/src/i18n`, Word's languages from its bundle listing) · **Target:** Microsoft Word (Microsoft 365) for Mac 16.113.4
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Interface languages, script support and proofing per language. How translation works (catalog
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format, adding a language, clean-room rule): `crates/ui-egui/src/i18n/mod.rs`.
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**Dimension: ~28% (estimated; 27% before Portuguese proofing, 25% before Polish and per-run proofing languages), 70–115 h to full
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for the twelve key languages** plus ~45 h for the other ~17 languages Word ships, plus
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native-speaker review (human).
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## What Word ships (measured by listing the bundle)
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- **30 interface languages** (31 `.lproj` folders incl. Base): ar, cs, da, de, el, en, en-GB, es,
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es-MX, fi, fr, fr-CA, he, hu, id, it, ja, ko, nl, no, pl, pt (BR), pt-PT, ru, sk, sv, th, tr,
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zh-CN, zh-TW. Arabic and Hebrew get a mirrored interface. No Hindi or Vietnamese interface on Mac.
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- **120 proofing tools** (`SharedSupport/Proofing Tools`): spellers for ~50 languages, grammar
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checkers for ~20, hyphenators for ~16, thesauri for ~20.
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## What WordCraft ships (measured)
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- **19 interface languages**: English plus `zh-hans`, `zh-hant`, `ja`, `uk`, `es`, `pt-br`,
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Serbian `sr`/`sr-latn` (#250), Estonian `et`, Turkish `tr`, Russian `ru`, Italian `it` (#594), German `de` (#574), Polish `pl`, Czech `cs`, Hungarian `hu`, French `fr` and Bulgarian `bg`. Catalogs have 2,021–2,419 entries
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each; Polish has every key of every other catalog except the style names and equation gallery labels only Russian, Italian, Hungarian, Turkish and Bulgarian translate so far (a test checks it). A test (`every_tab_and_command_is_translated`) enforces that every ribbon tab, command
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label and ribbon location is translated in every language.
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`pl`, `pl-PL` and `pl_PL.UTF-8` system locales pick Polish automatically.
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- Of the 675 English strings a scan extracts from `tl!(…)` calls and command labels/locations, each
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catalog covers **661 (98%)**. Some newer dialog and pane strings (Equation tab tooltips, Zotero,
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Read Aloud, Backstage greetings) aren't wrapped in `tl!` yet, so they show in English in every
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language: the true share of visible strings is **~93–95%** (estimated).
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- Pending PRs: Norwegian Bokmål (#208) and Nynorsk (#210), Hebrew with RTL (#20).
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- **Proofing: English, Polish and Portuguese**, chosen per run from its language (`w:lang`, resolved through
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the styles; Review › Language and the status bar set it). Languages without proofing tools get
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no spelling or grammar marks (as in Word without the language's tools) instead of being flagged
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as English. Detail in [Proofing per language](#proofing-per-language).
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- Document scripts: shaping via HarfRust (HarfBuzz port) for every script; bidi (UAX #9) and Arabic
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shaping tested (#207); IME on all desktop platforms (winit fixes pending, #155–#164).
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## The twelve key languages
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Status: `full` = every user-visible string translated and the script renders and edits correctly;
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`partial`; `menus only`; `none`. Hours are to `full`, Opus 5.5 agent wall-clock, excluding the
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shared items below.
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| Language | Code | UI strings translated | Dialogs / tooltips / help | Script support | Native review | Status | Hours to full |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| English | en | source (100%) | ✅ | Latin ✅ | yes | **full** | 0 |
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| Simplified Chinese (Mandarin) | zh-hans | 929 entries; 98% of extracted, ~95% of visible | most; newer panes English | CJK ✅, IME ✅; Windows UI font fixed (#248); interface font chain covers every catalog character, installed CJK font after the embedded ones when it doesn't, PingFang found on macOS 12 (#486); font list by Chinese names (宋体, 微软雅黑, #505); no vertical text | no | partial | 3–5 |
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| Spanish | es | ~930; 98% / ~95% | most | Latin ✅ | no | partial | 1–2 |
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| Hindi | hi | 0 | ❌ | Devanagari shaping via HarfRust, untested; no hyphenation | no | none | 4–6 |
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| Arabic | ar | 0 | ❌ | shaping, joining, lam-alef, bidi ✅ (#207); no kashida; **no mirrored UI** | no | none | 6–8 |
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| French | fr | 2,033 entries | most; newer dialogs partly English | Latin ✅ | no | partial | 1–2 |
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| Portuguese | pt-br (pt-PT none) | ~930; 98% / ~95% (pt-BR) | most | Latin ✅ | no | partial | 2–4 (pt-BR finish + pt-PT) |
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| Indonesian | id | 0 | ❌ | Latin ✅ | no | none | 3–4 |
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| Japanese | ja | ~930; 98% / ~95% | most | CJK ✅, IME ✅; no vertical text, ruby or document grid | no | partial | 3–5 |
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| German | de | 2,021 entries; same key set as zh-hans (#574); 98% of extracted, ~95% of visible | most | Latin ✅ | no | partial | 1–2 |
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| Korean | ko | 0 | ❌ | Hangul ✅; macOS Korean IME fixes pending (#163, #164) | no | none | 3–5 |
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| Vietnamese | vi | 0 | ❌ | Latin with stacked diacritics, untested | no | none | 3–4 |
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Other shipped languages: **13** — Traditional Chinese (`zh-hant`), Ukrainian (`uk`), Serbian
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Cyrillic and Latin (`sr`, `sr-latn`, #250), Estonian (`et`), Turkish (`tr`), Russian (`ru`), Italian (`it`, #594), Polish (`pl`), Czech (`cs`), Hungarian (`hu`), French (`fr`) and Bulgarian (`bg`), all partial.
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Estonian uses the existing fonts, follows `et-EE` system locales, and is available in Options or
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through `ui.language` with `{"value":"et"}`. Its 1,307 entries cover the existing interface catalog.
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Estonian spelling, grammar, dates and document templates are not added by the interface catalog.
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Turkish works the same way (`tr-TR` and `tr-CY` system locales, `{"value":"tr"}`) with all 2,325
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entries, the same keys as the Russian catalog. Command search folds the Turkish dotted and dotless I (`italik` finds İtalik, `YAZI TİPİ`
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finds Yazı Tipi) while English labels and ASCII command ids keep their usual matching. Turkish
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proofing is not included; terminology and checks: [`localization-tr.md`](localization-tr.md).
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Bulgarian (`bg-BG` system locales, `{"value":"bg"}`) has 2,419 entries: every key of the reference
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catalog, the equation gallery's labels and everything the interface audit finds (the audit checks
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Bulgarian as it does Russian). Counts use count-neutral wording (`Думи: 21`). Bulgarian text is
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hyphenated by the Bulgarian syllable rules (#826); Bulgarian spelling and grammar are not included.
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Hungarian follows `hu-HU` system locales and `{"value":"hu"}`, with a complete catalog of 2,419 entries: every key of
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the Russian catalog, built-in style names shown translated, plus the citation style names. Hungarian proofing is not included; terminology and conventions:
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[`localization-hu.md`](localization-hu.md).
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Polish is the only one besides English with proofing tools, and a Polish interface writes new
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documents in Polish (`pl-PL`).
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## Proofing per language
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| Language | Spelling | Suggestions | Grammar | Hyphenation |
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|---|---|---|---|---|
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| English (`en`, any region; text with no language) | Moby word list (public domain, ~160k words) with inflection rules | edit distance | repeated word, `a`/`an`, sentence capital, space before punctuation, double space | Moby dictionary, our Liang patterns, heuristic |
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| Polish (`pl`) | The Hunspell `pl_PL` dictionary installed on the system (OS package, Homebrew, LibreOffice, or the `WORDCRAFT_DICTIONARIES` folder; not bundled, so no Polish spelling marks without it), read at runtime by a Hunspell-style affix engine (`crates/proof/src/affix.rs`); names capitalized, compounds part by part, `Kennedy'ego` | missing diacritics first (`zolw` → `żółw`), the dictionary's confusion table (`żeka` → `rzeka`, `chuśtawka` → `huśtawka`), missing space (`napewno` → `na pewno`), one typo, then a stem scan within two typos | Polish messages: repeated word, space before punctuation, double space, sentence capital (knows `np.`, `r.`, initials, ordinals, dialogue dashes), missing comma before `że`/`który`/`ponieważ`/`gdyż`/`aby`/`żeby`/`jeśli`/`jeżeli`/`gdyby`/`lecz` (not after `mimo`, `chyba`, `tak`, prepositions…), `we`/`ze` (`we wtorek`, `ze szkoły`), doubled punctuation | TeX Polish patterns (Kołodziejska, Jackowski, Ryćko; MIT option) with their 20 exception words; a Polish syllable heuristic for letters outside the alphabet |
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| Portuguese (`pt`, any region) | The Hunspell `pt_BR` dictionary installed on the system — VERO and its derivatives (same places as Polish; not bundled, LGPL/MPL), read at runtime by the same affix engine, which reads its `FLAG UTF-8`, 106 flags, continuation classes and `FORBIDDENWORD` spellings; names capitalized, compounds part by part (`guarda-roupa`, `ex-marido`) | missing accents first (`coraçao` → `coração`, `saude` → `saúde`), the dictionary's confusion table (`seje` → `seja`, `excessão` → `exceção`), missing space (`nãoé` → `não é`), one typo, then an accent-folding stem scan | Portuguese messages: repeated word (the emphatic doubles are allowed), space before punctuation, double space, sentence capital (knows `etc.`, `pág.`, `Dr.`, initials, ordinals, dialogue dashes), doubled punctuation; no comma rule — `que` opens a clause only sometimes | TeX Portuguese patterns (Rezende, Almeida, Araujo, Benevides; BSD 3-clause) with their 2 exception words |
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| Any other | — (no marks) | — | — | the English patterns, as before |
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Measured with the SJP.PL dictionary: every one of the ~4.5 million forms an independent expansion of its affix file
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produces is accepted, and 200,000 one-edit mutations that aren't words are all rejected; a check
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takes ~1 µs, a suggestion list 1–35 ms (release build). Not yet: other languages' dictionaries,
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a thesaurus for Polish, Word's style and clarity refinements, Polish-specific AutoCorrect.
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Italian (`it`, #594) follows `it`, `it-IT` and `it-CH` system locales. Its catalog has every key of
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the others plus 51 strings that are wrapped in `tl!` but were in no catalog yet (File › Info
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properties, the File › Home greeting, list levels, Equation tab gallery and tooltips). Ribbon tabs,
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groups and command names use the names Italian Word users know (feature names, as `AGENTS.md`
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allows); all other text is written from the meaning of the English. No Italian proofing yet.
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## Region conventions (#838)
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As in Word, a new blank document takes its paper from the system **region**, not the interface
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language: US Letter in the territories CLDR lists for it (US, Canada, Mexico, the Philippines,
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Chile, Colombia, Venezuela and a few Central American ones), A4 everywhere else. Lengths are shown
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in inches in the US (and Liberia, Myanmar) and centimetres elsewhere, written with the region's
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decimal separator (`2,54 cm` in Poland, Germany, France…); fields take either separator and any
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unit (`1 in` in a centimetre field). An explicit File › Options › Advanced › Measurement units
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choice still wins; its Automatic entry follows the region again.
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Where the region comes from:
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- **File › Options › Advanced › Region** (saved; agents: `file.options {"region": "pl-PL"}`, `auto`
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returns to the system's);
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- else `WORDCRAFT_REGION` or `LC_ALL`;
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- else, on Unix, each convention from its own locale: numbers from `LC_NUMERIC` (else `LANG`),
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paper from `LC_PAPER`, measurement from `LC_MEASUREMENT`;
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- else the platform's preferred locale: the macOS preferred locale (`en-PL`), the browser's
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language on the web, and on Windows the home location (Settings › Time & language › Region)
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with the display language. Word follows Windows' regional format instead, so an en-US format
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set by someone living in Germany gives A4 and a decimal comma here; reading the regional format
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needs Win32 calls that are `unsafe` in Rust, which WordCraft forbids.
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Runs without preferences (`WORDCRAFT_NO_PREFS`) stay `en-US` unless `WORDCRAFT_REGION` is set, so
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agents and screenshots give the same result on every machine. The decimal separator belongs to
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the language's own number format (CLDR): a decimal-comma language uses a comma everywhere except
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where CLDR says otherwise (`de-CH`), and English, whose `en-XX` locales follow the territory, uses a
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comma in decimal-comma territories (`en-DE`, `en-PL`). Other decimal-point languages keep the point
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in any territory (`ja-PL` is `2.54 cm`), as CLDR's fallback to the language gives.
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Templates (Letter, Resume, Report) keep their own size. Not yet: Word's "Default paper size"
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preference of its own, and Word's locale-specific Normal margins (2,5 cm in some regions;
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WordCraft keeps 2,54 cm).
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## Shared work (not in the per-language hours)
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| Item | Hours | Notes |
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| Wrap the remaining English literals in `tl!` and translate them in every catalog | 4–6 | Makes the six partial languages full except script items |
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| Mirrored (right-to-left) interface for Arabic and Hebrew | 15–25 | Ribbon, panes, dialogs, rulers |
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| Vertical text, ruby, document grid (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) | counted in [layout-parity.md](layout-parity.md) | |
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| Proofing dictionaries, grammar and hyphenation for the 11 non-English key languages | 20–40 | Open dictionaries only (licence check per dictionary); issues #25, #40, #100. Per-run languages, the Hunspell-style affix engine and the TeX pattern reader landed with Polish, so a language with an open Hunspell dictionary and hyphenation patterns is mostly data plus grammar rules |
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| Native-speaker review of every catalog | human | None reviewed yet |
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## Revision history
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| Date | Change | Summary |
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| 2026-10-11 | minor | Turkish interface catalog completed (2,325 entries, the same keys as Russian): equation gallery, built-in style names, watermarks, paper sizes and preview tiles; the interface audit checks Turkish too (#774) |
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| 2026-10-12 | trivial | Region conventions: File › Options › Advanced › Region (saved) and an Automatic units entry; Unix `LC_PAPER`/`LC_MEASUREMENT`/`LC_NUMERIC` each decide their own convention; the web reads the browser's locale; `WORDCRAFT_NO_PREFS` runs stay en-US; where the decimal separator comes from (#838 review) |
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| 2026-10-12 | minor | New blank documents follow the system region: A4 outside the Letter territories, centimetres outside the US, the region's decimal separator in length fields; explicit Measurement units choice wins (#838) |
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| 2026-10-11 | minor | Czech (`cs`) interface catalog added |
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| 2026-10-12 | minor | Portuguese proofing: pt-BR spelling from the installed VERO dictionary (the affix engine grew `FLAG UTF-8`, 128 flag bits, continuation classes and `FORBIDDENWORD`), accent-first suggestions, conservative grammar with Portuguese messages, TeX Portuguese hyphenation patterns (BSD 3-clause); Review › Language offers Português (Brasil); a pt-br interface writes pt-BR documents; dimension ~27% → ~28% |
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| 2026-10-11 | minor | Polish interface (13 languages) and Polish proofing: SJP.PL spelling with suggestions, Polish grammar rules, TeX Polish hyphenation; proofing language per run; dimension ~25% → ~27% |
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| 2026-10-11 | minor | German interface catalog (#574): 2,021 entries covering the full zh-hans key set; locale, saved-preference and bundled-font tests; no German proofing |
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| 2026-10-11 | minor | Italian interface catalog (#594), locale selection, saved preference and font coverage checks; count labels put the noun first so they read right at 1 |
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| 2026-10-11 | minor | Font dialog sets the Asian text font (`w:eastAsia`) and the Latin text font separately; the Asian list holds the installed Chinese, Japanese and Korean fonts by their interface-language names (#505) |
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| 2026-10-11 | minor | French interface catalog (2,033 entries, @pechnikov2026-star), `fr-*` system locales, saved preference and font coverage checks; no French proofing |
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| 2026-10-11 | minor | Font list shows installed fonts by their names in the interface language (宋体 for SimSun in Chinese, Japanese and Korean names likewise) and finds them by either name; a Chinese, Japanese or Korean font is stored as `w:eastAsia` too (#505) |
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| 2026-10-11 | minor | Chinese/Japanese interface fonts: a test checks every catalog character has a glyph; an installed CJK font follows the embedded faces whenever they miss one; macOS font asset folders searched for PingFang (#486) |
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| 2026-10-10 | minor | Russian interface (#300; 1,524 entries, built-in style names shown translated; covers everything the interface audit finds) |
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| 2026-10-12 | minor | Bulgarian interface catalog (2,419 entries), locale selection, saved preference, audit coverage and font checks |
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| 2026-10-11 | minor | Hungarian interface catalog (2,419 entries, built-in style names shown translated; covers everything the interface audit finds), locale selection, saved preference and font coverage checks |
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| 2026-10-11 | minor | Turkish interface catalog (1,307 entries), locale selection, saved preference, Turkish casing in command search and font coverage checks; catalog sizes re-counted |
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| 2026-10-11 | trivial | English spelling (#520): our supplement `assets/spelling/en-extra.txt` adds ~220 common modern words the Moby list lacks ("desktop", "download", "email"…) |
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| 2026-10-10 | minor | Estonian interface catalog, locale selection, saved preference and font coverage checks; count labels put the noun first so they read right at 1 |
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| 2026-10-10 | minor | Serbian (Cyrillic and Latin) interface merged (#250) |
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| 2026-10-10 | major | First version: twelve-language table, catalog coverage measured, Word's 30 UI languages and 120 proofing tools listed |
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