Writing in Italian or Scandinavian with MS Word for iOS

This post applies if you type in a language with the word “i” in lower case, in other words not English, which uses upper case I to describe “me.” Languages where this post applies are for example Italian, Croatian, Catalan, Swedish, Danish and Norwegian.

The post applies to the current iOS in February 2019 on both iPhone and iPad, when you use the current version of Microsoft Word for iOS.

The problem is that Word automatically capitalises the letter i to I, even if you use an Italian keyboard layout, Italian spellchecking (Review > Proofing Language) and run your iOS device in Italian (or another language with lower case i as a single word).

There are a few cumbersome things you can do to type i:

• Press i and space, and then step back with the delete key, and type it once more.
• Press i and tap on the I that pops up every time. This solution does not necessarily work if you use a hardware keyboard.
• Press two spaces and tap between them. Press i. Tap anywhere on the screen.
• Type the entire text and accept that every i becomes an I. Then go back and double tap on every I, then type i to replace the text, and then tap somewhere else on the screen each time.

I have sent feedback to Microsoft about this, and if you have the same problem in your favourite language, I suggest you do so too. 

 
i > I