diff --git a/sw.cpp b/sw.cpp
index 56d8c95030..5502da31be 100644
--- a/sw.cpp
+++ b/sw.cpp
@@ -3,6 +3,8 @@ void build(Solution &s)
     auto &tess = s.addProject("google.tesseract", "master");
     tess += Git("https://github.com/tesseract-ocr/tesseract", "", "{v}");
 
+    auto cppstd = cpp17;
+
     auto &libtesseract = tess.addTarget<LibraryTarget>("libtesseract");
     {
         libtesseract.setChecks("libtesseract");
@@ -10,7 +12,7 @@ void build(Solution &s)
         libtesseract.ExportAllSymbols = true;
         libtesseract.PackageDefinitions = true;
 
-        libtesseract += cpp14;
+        libtesseract += cppstd;
 
         libtesseract += "include/.*"_rr;
         libtesseract += "src/.*"_rr;
@@ -102,19 +104,19 @@ void build(Solution &s)
 
     //
     auto &tesseract = tess.addExecutable("tesseract");
-    tesseract += cpp14;
+    tesseract += cppstd;
     tesseract += "src/api/tesseractmain.cpp";
     tesseract += libtesseract;
 
     //
     auto &tessopt = tess.addStaticLibrary("tessopt");
-    tessopt += cpp14;
+    tessopt += cppstd;
     tessopt += "src/training/tessopt.*"_rr;
     tessopt.Public += libtesseract;
 
     //
     auto &common_training = tess.addStaticLibrary("common_training");
-    common_training += cpp14;
+    common_training += cppstd;
     common_training +=
         "src/training/commandlineflags.cpp",
         "src/training/commandlineflags.h",
@@ -140,7 +142,7 @@ void build(Solution &s)
 
     //
     auto &unicharset_training = tess.addStaticLibrary("unicharset_training");
-    unicharset_training += cpp14;
+    unicharset_training += cppstd;
     unicharset_training +=
         "src/training/fileio.*"_rr,
         "src/training/icuerrorcode.*"_rr,
@@ -157,7 +159,7 @@ void build(Solution &s)
     //
 #define ADD_EXE(n, ...)               \
     auto &n = tess.addExecutable(#n); \
-    n += cpp14;                       \
+    n += cppstd;                       \
     n += "src/training/" #n ".*"_rr;  \
     n.Public += __VA_ARGS__;          \
     n
@@ -177,7 +179,7 @@ void build(Solution &s)
     ADD_EXE(set_unicharset_properties, unicharset_training);
 
     ADD_EXE(text2image, unicharset_training);
-    text2image += cpp14;
+    text2image += cppstd;
     text2image +=
         "src/training/boxchar.cpp",
         "src/training/boxchar.h",