How do I prevent the keyboard from switching to Spanish

Michael D Bailey 55 Reputation points
2026-09-13T01:25:02.2233333+00:00

I'm an advanced Word user and I'm translating a book from English to Spanish. The document I'm editing is set in Latin American Spanish. I don't have a Spanish keyboard, yet when I switch between a Spanish document and the original English pdf document, my keyboard keeps switching to Latin American Spanish and it's very irritating. I have not installed a Spanish keyboard layout, however I have installed the Latin American Spanish language pack into MS Word. I want my keyboard layout to ALWAYS remain in English. I've tried editing Widows 11 Pro keyboard setting to no avail. This is NOT a Microsoft 365 issue as the proble is with Windows 11 Pro.

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Input and language
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AI answer

2026-09-13T01:25:13.7866667+00:00

Word is likely switching the keyboard because the document language is Spanish and the automatic keyboard-matching feature is enabled.

Use these steps:

  1. In Word, open File > Options > Advanced.
  2. Under Editing options, clear Automatically switch keyboard to match language of surrounding text.
    • This setting can cause the keyboard language to change while typing.

If Word is also auto-detecting language and contributing to the behavior:

  1. Go to Review > Language > Set Proofing Language.
  2. Clear Detect language automatically.
    • Automatic language detection can identify surrounding Spanish text and apply that language behavior.

If Spanish still appears as an available keyboard/input option in Windows, verify that only the English keyboard is installed:

  1. In Windows 11, go to Start > Settings > Time & language > Language & region.
  2. Select the language that contains the keyboard to keep, then select Options.
  3. Under keyboards, confirm only the English keyboard is present. If needed, use Add a keyboard only for the keyboard layout that should remain available.

If the language bar is visible and keyboard layouts are still switching manually, note that Alt+Shift switches keyboard layouts. Also, the Language bar appears only after two or more keyboard layouts are enabled.

References:

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