Office in Bulgarian: menu language and spell-check

You have bought Office, installed it, and the menus in Word and Excel are in English while every Bulgarian word has a red squiggly line under it. This is not a licence problem and does not require a new purchase. Office has two separate languages – one for the menus and one for checking your text – and both can be set up free of charge. Here is how it works for Office 2016, 2019, 2021 and Microsoft 365 on Windows, and what to expect on a Mac.

Two different languages: display and proofing

In Office, languages are set separately:

• Display language – the language of menus, buttons and help.
• Authoring and proofing language – the language you write in and the dictionary used to check spelling.

You can, for example, work with English menus and Bulgarian spell-check, or with a fully Bulgarian interface. Microsoft recommends that if you want Office entirely in another language, you first set the same language as your Windows display language – we describe how in How to change the Windows 11 language to Bulgarian.

Step 1: check what is already installed

Open Word or Excel and go to File → Options → Language. The window has two lists:

• Office display language
• Office authoring languages and proofing

If Bulgarian is already in the first list, skip straight to step 3. Next to each language in the second list you will also see the status of the proofing tools: "Proofing installed" means the Bulgarian dictionary is available, while "Proofing available" means you only need to click the link to install it.

Step 2: install the Language Accessory Pack

If Bulgarian is missing, you need the Language Accessory Pack. It is a free download from Microsoft's "Language Accessory Pack for Microsoft 365" page on support.microsoft.com, which covers Microsoft 365, Office 2024, 2021, 2019 and 2016.

1. Select the tab for your version – newer versions (Microsoft 365, 2024, 2021), Office 2019 or Office 2016.
2. Choose Bulgarian from the drop-down list. For Bulgarian, Microsoft lists full localisation: the pack includes the interface, help and proofing tools.
3. Download the 32-bit or 64-bit version – it must match your installed Office. If you are not sure, check in Word under File → Account and the About Word button.
4. Run the downloaded file and wait for the installation to finish.

If Office was installed by your company's IT department, Microsoft advises having the administrator install language packs. For volume-licensed editions, administrators deploy languages with the Office Deployment Tool.

The easier route: install Office in Bulgarian from the start

If you are just installing Office 2021, 2019 or 2016 and the key is linked to your Microsoft account, the install page has a drop-down with more options where you can choose the language and the 64-bit version before selecting Install. The whole process is described in How to activate Office 2021.

Step 3: set Bulgarian as preferred

1. Open File → Options → Language again.
2. Under Office display language, select Bulgarian and choose Set as Preferred. If Windows is already in Bulgarian, you can instead choose Match Microsoft Windows.
3. Under Office authoring languages and proofing, select Bulgarian and again choose Set as Preferred.
4. Close all Office programs, including Outlook, and open them again – the change applies after a restart.

The settings are shared across the suite, so you do this once and it applies to Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook.

Bulgarian spell-check in Word and Outlook

The proofing language is set for each piece of text. That is why one document can contain English and Bulgarian paragraphs, each checked correctly. To avoid setting the language by hand, turn on automatic detection: Review → Language → Set Proofing Language and tick Detect language automatically.

What to expect in practice: according to Microsoft's table for Microsoft Editor, spelling is checked for Bulgarian, but grammar and style are not. In other words, Word will underline misspelt words but will not offer grammar corrections the way it does for English.

Common reasons why checking "does not work":

• The text is marked as another language. This often happens with text copied from the web or from an email. Select everything with Ctrl + A and set Bulgarian from the same menu.
• Checking is switched off for that text. In the language selection window, check that Do not check spelling or grammar is not ticked.
• The proofing tools are not installed. If Bulgarian shows "Proofing available", click the link to add them.

Excel: number and date formats

Excel takes the decimal separator and date format from the Windows regional settings, not from the Office language. With a Bulgarian regional format the decimal separator is a comma and formula arguments are usually separated by semicolons. If numbers from a CSV file are treated as text, check the regional format in Windows first.

Office for Mac: what is different

On a Mac there are no language packs to download – Office for Mac already includes all available languages. The menu language follows the primary language of macOS: change it in System Settings → General → Language & Region by dragging the language you want to the top, then restart the Office app.

An important caveat: Bulgarian does not appear in Microsoft's list of interface languages for Office 2021 and Microsoft 365 for Mac. So even with macOS in Bulgarian, the menus of Word and Excel for Mac will stay in another language, usually English. The Bulgarian spelling dictionary is available, though – Microsoft lists spelling for Bulgarian. You set it under Tools → Language by choosing Bulgarian and selecting Default so it applies to new documents. If you are choosing a Mac version, see our Office for Mac licences.

Do you need a "Bulgarian" licence?

No. The product key is not tied to a language: Office is installed in the language you choose, and extra languages are added free of charge. For example, Office 2021 Pro Plus works the same way in English and in Bulgarian, and changing the language does not affect activation.

If you are only now choosing Office for home or the office, Office 2021 Pro Plus includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access and Publisher and installs in Bulgarian or any other language you choose. The other versions are in our Office licences category. Activation goes through Microsoft's official servers, the key arrives by email within 15 minutes during business hours, you receive an invoice and a 2-year statutory guarantee of conformity, and if there is an activation problem we replace the key free of charge or refund you. If you have questions, we help in Bulgarian every day, 09:00–20:00.