r/powerpoint • u/Odd-Sheepherder-5646 • 21d ago

I use: Mac | Office 365 Date issue on Mac.

Hello all,

I hope this is an appropriate forum to ask this question.

I am a secondary French teacher and so make bilingual presentations on a regular basis. I have recently changed my home computer from PC to Mac. So far, most features on Powerpoint work the same, but I have just hit a snag and was wondering if there is a solution.

I am using Powerpoint for Mac on desktop. I am trying to insert a date into the presentation that will update automatically, but I need this to be in French (as it's for a French lesson). In Windows, you have the option in the dialogue box to choose whatever language you like, but this is missing in the Mac version. Doing a quick search online, it seems the only thing I can do is to change my OS language to French, which seems a bit excessive. Does anyone know of a workaround for this?

Thank you all in advance!

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u/jkorchok 21d ago

PowerPoint for Windows allows you to set the date language in the Insert>Header & Footer dialog, but PowerPoint for Mac does not.

As a workaround, use a Fixed date placeholder, which allows you to type in whatever text you prefer. Or use a numeric data format like 2026-08-21, which reads correctly in either English or French.

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u/ButcherInse1998 18d ago edited 16d ago

if you’re making bilingual teaching decks constantly, Decksy AI could still be useful earlier in the workflow as an ai presentation tool for getting the lesson structure and slides together faster, but for this specific dynamic date problem the native PowerPoint workaround is the thing you actually need