Look up words with English Assistance

English Assistance is designed to help people for whom English is a second language to write better English text. This service provides an integrated reference guide that provides assistance for linguistic explanations and usage in addition to suggestions for synonyms and collocations (the association between words that are typically or frequently used together).

English Assistance appears in the Research pane as one of the Reference Books.

English Assistance: Japanese

What do you want to do?

Look up words with English Assistance

Which Microsoft Office program are you using?

Excel

  1. On the Review tab, in the Proofing group, click Research.
  2. In the Research pane, under All Reference Books, select English Assistance: <language>.
  3. Type a word or phrase in the Search for box, and then click Start searching Button image.

The results appear in the Research pane.

 Note    If you don't see the English Assistance service that you want, you may need to install that service. See Add an English Assistance service for more information.

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OneNote

  1. On the Review tab, in the Spelling group, click Research.
  2. In the Research pane, under All Reference Books, select English Assistance: <language>.
  3. Do one of the following in the Research pane:
    • To look up a single word in the document, press ALT, and then click the word that you want to look up.
    • Type a word or phrase in the Search for box, and then click Start searching Button image.

 Note    If you don't see the English Assistance service that you want, you may need to install that service, see Add an English Assistance service for more information.

The results appear in the Research pane.

Return to program list

Outlook

  1. In a new message, click the message body.
  2. On the Review tab, in the Proofing group, click Research.
  3. Do one of the following in the Research pane:
  • To look up a single word in the message, press ALT, and then click the word that you want to look up.
  • To look up a phrase in the message, select the words that you want, press ALT, and then click the selection.
  • Type a word or phrase in the Search for box, and then click Start searching Button image.

The results appear in the Research pane.


 Notes 

  • If you have the Simplified Chinese or Japanese language pack installed, and Simplified Chinese or Japanese selected as the default editing language, you can right-click the word, and then click English Assistance or click English Assistance directly on the ribbon.
  • If you don't see the English Assistance service that you want, you may need to install that service, see Add an English Assistance service for more information.

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PowerPoint

  1. On the Review tab, in the Proofing group, click Research.
  2. In the Research pane, under All Reference Books, select English Assistance: <language>.
  3. Type the word or phrase in the Search for box, and then click Start searching Button image.

The results appear in the Research pane.

 Note    If you don't see the English Assistance service that you want, you may need to install that service, see Add an English Assistance service for more information.

Return to program list

Publisher

  1. On the Review tab, in the Proofing group, click Research.
  2. In the Research pane, under All Reference Books, select English Assistance: <language>.
  3. Do one of the following in the Research pane:
    • To look up a single word in the file, press ALT, and then click the word that you want to look up.
    • Type a word or phrase in the Search for box, and then click Start searching Button image.

The results appear in the Research task pane.

 Note    If you don't see the English Assistance service that you want, you may need to install that service, see Add an English Assistance service for more information.

Return to program list

Visio

  1. On the Review tab, in the Proofing group, click Research.
  2. In the Research pane, under All Reference Books, select English Assistance: <language>.
  3. Do one of the following in the Research pane:
    • To look up a single word in the file, press ALT, and then click the word that you want to look up.
    • To look up a phrase in the file, select the words that you want, press ALT, and then click the selection.
    • Type a word or phrase in the Search for box, and then click Start searching.Button image

The results appear in the Research pane.

 Note    If you don't see the English Assistance service that you want, you may need to install that service, see Add an English Assistance service for more information.

Return to program list

Word

  1. On the Review tab, in the Proofing group, click Research.
  2. Do one of the following in the Research pane:
    • To look up a single word in the document, press ALT, and then click the word that you want to look up.
    • To look up a phrase in the document, select the words that you want, press ALT, and then click the selection.
    • Type a word or phrase in the Search for box, and then click Start Searching . Button image

The results appear in the Research task pane.


 Notes 

  • People with Chinese or Japanese versions of Office can also right-click the word and select English Assistance from the menu or select English Assistance directly from the ribbon.
  • If you don't see the English Assistance service that you want, you may need to install that service, see Add an English Assistance service for more information

Return to program list

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Add an English Assistance service

To add an English Assistance service to your Office programs, follow these steps:

  1. Open the Research pane in the program that you are using, and then click Research options. To learn how to open the Research pane, see Look up words with English Assistance for the particular program that you are using.
  2. In the Research Options dialog box, click Update/Remove.
  3. In the Update or Remove Services dialog box, select English Assistance (online) and then click Update.

The English Assistance service that you installed displays in the Research Options dialog box under Reference Books.

 Note    Depending on which language version of Office that you have installed on your computer, and the system location setting of your computer, you may get English Assistance services with different contents.

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Learn more about English Assistance features

Depending on which language version of Office that you have installed on your computer, and the system location setting of your computer, you may get English Assistance services with different contents:

  • Bilingual Dictionaries     Provides translation, explanation and related example sentences between English and another language (Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Traditional Chinese, French, German, Spanish and Italian) to help you understand the meaning of a word or phrase and its usage.
  • English Dictionaries     Provides definitions of many English words.
  • Word Combination     Provides common collocations of an English word or phrase, and related example sentences that show correct usage with context.
  • Synonyms     Provides many different expressions to improve your English usage.

You can only access English Assistance when you are connected to the Internet, with the exceptions of Simplified Chinese and Japanese Office. With these two versions of office, you can access the following English Assistance contents when you are not connected to the Internet:

  • Bilingual Dictionaries     Provides translation, explanation and related example sentences between English and another language (Simplified Chinese, Japanese) to help you understand the meaning of a word or phrase and its usage.
  • English Dictionaries    Provides quick definitions of English words from the Encarta English dictionary.


 Notes 

  • Only English Assistance: Simplified Chinese and English Assistance: Japanese support this offline use.
  • You must have the Simplified Chinese- or Japanese-language version of Microsoft Office with Simplified Chinese or Japanese selected as the default editing language through Microsoft Office Language Preferences installed on your computer.
  • When you connect to the internet again, you will automatically receive the full content services.

You can also use the Mini Translator to see the translation of a single word and listen to an audio pronunciation of the word. A concise Simplified Chinese-English dictionary is provided for quick reference in the Simplified Chinese version of Office. To use this with the Mini Translator, select English Assistance: Simplified Chinese from the Translated to: menu in Translation language options. To learn more, see See translations with the Mini Translator.

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Applies to:
Excel 2013, OneNote 2013, Outlook 2013, PowerPoint 2013, Publisher 2013, Visio 2013, Visio Professional 2013, Word 2013, Excel 2010, OneNote 2010, Outlook 2010, PowerPoint 2010, Publisher 2010, Word 2010