MS Office for Mac doesn't use system settings for measurements

Anonymous
2023-11-30T02:59:43+00:00

I am using MS Office for Mac, and recently, all measurements in PowerPoint, Word, etc have suddenly changed to inches instead of centimeters.

I checked the system settings through System Settings > General > Language & Region > Measurement system, which is set to Metric. Changing it to US and then back to Metric did not re-trigger MS Office to use the correct measurement system and it continues to show in inches.

Can someone help? I would like to show all measurements in MS Office in centimeters like I had before.

For context, I am using:

  • MacBook Air (M1, 2020)
  • macOS Sonama 14.1.1 (23B81)
  • MS 365 subscription
  • MS PowerPoint/Word/Excel for Mac, version 16.79.2 (23112723)
Microsoft 365 and Office | PowerPoint | For home | MacOS

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John Korchok 236.6K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
2023-11-30T16:31:52+00:00

This is a bug that only affects some measurements, like paragraph formatting. To let Microsoft know about the issue, choose Help>Feedback>I don't like something. Describe the problem, being specific about which dialogs display the issue, so they can reproduce the problem. Submitting sends the report to the Mac programming team. They are unlikely to reply.

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  1. Anonymous
    2023-11-30T06:18:06+00:00

    Dear respected Jeroen Vaassen,

    Welcome to Microsoft Community and we are glad to offer support for you.

    Based on the description, it seems the measurements in the Office apps are showing in the inches instead of centimetres. Please correct us if there is any misunderstanding.

    In this situation, as you already set the correct settings in the Mac Preference with no success, I would like to suggest you to change the Mac Preferences to UK> Restart the Mac> Now change again the Mac Preferences to US and set it to Metric> Restart the Mac> Open your Office apps and check the outcome.

    If still the same problem, does the problem happens only with the Office apps?

    Appreciate your patience and understanding and thank you for your time and cooperation.

    Sincerely,
    Mia | Microsoft Moderator

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-12-01T03:23:00+00:00

    Hi Mia,

    Thanks for the response.

    I have tried your suggestion (change to UK > restart > change to metric > restart). Unfortunately, that did not fix the problem. The MS Office apps continue to show measurements in inches instead of centimeters.

    This seems only to affect the MS Office apps. I tried other apps and they are correctly showing in centimeters.

    Is there any known bug or any other setting that we can change to resolve this?

    I also noticed John's comment, however the issue with the MS Office apps seems to be across the applications and not with some measurements like paragraph formatting.

    Regards,

    Jeroen

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-12-06T15:40:40+00:00

    Dear Jeroen,

    As we done some tests from our end, we haven't notice any issue and the steps provided didn't fix the problem, we would like to suggest you report the problem to related development team via adding the feedback in the Word application.

    Sincerely,

    Mia | Microsoft Moderator

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  4. Jim G 134.1K Reputation points MVP
    2023-12-10T19:19:23+00:00

    Please follow John's advice to report the problem to Microsoft.

    However, it seems likely the issue is Sonoma, not your Office applications. You might also report this behavior to Apple. Apple has various ways to submit bug reports. This article explains them.

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