Microsoft Office Heads North Of The Border With Scottish Gaelic Support

Microsoft has given its Scottish customers a late Burns Night present by announcing that its Office software suite will now come with Scottish Gaelic language support.

Scottish Gaelic is the latest addition to the 95 languages and dialects supported by proofing functionality in Microsoft Office, which includes widely-used programs such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

The news means that 60,000 speakers of the language in Scotland, plus Scottish Gaelic speakers elsewhere, will now be able to benefit from spell check functions in Microsoft Office 365, Office 2013 and Office Online.

Expanded

“This is the result of several months of hard work with our partners at the at Bòrd na Gàidhlig and we are proud that Scottish Gaelic speakers will now be able to use the features of Microsoft Office in their preferred language,” said Chris Forrest, managing director of Microsoft Scotland, speaking at the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh today.

“This is an important step forward for old and new Gaelic speakers alike,” said the minister for learning, science and Scotland’s languages, Dr Alasdair Allan MSP.

“On the one hand, it acknowledges the currency and enduring vitality of the language and will help raise its profile through social media and online, giving it even greater prominence and connecting even more speakers from across the world. I hope others will follow Microsoft’s lead in supporting the thousands of speakers and the Gaelic businesses contributing significantly to our economy.”

Office has long been a key part of Microsoft’s PC business, with millions of users throughout the world. Last week, the company announced that the latest version of the software, Office 2016, will be released during the second half of 2015, with more details about the being released in the coming months.

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