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Inspiring
February 2, 2017
Answered

Hebrew text backwards

  • February 2, 2017
  • 2 replies
  • 8341 views

I copied a text that included Spanish and Hebrew into indesign and at first the text was fine the Spanish was LTR and the Hebrew RTL but then I added a script to make footnotes into two columns something changed and now when I have Hebrew words in brackets the text is weird and I can't pinpoint what changed

Before

After

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Correct answer Dov Isaacs

Great!

In certain situations where you have certain characters (including numerals, parentheses, etc.) that are used either in a Left-to-Right or Right-to-Left context adjoining Hebrew text, you need to explicitly define such text as Left-to-Right to counteract assumptions (often wrong) made by InDesign.

If you have the Text tool selected, on the task bar at the far right hand corner is a “hamburger menu” that if you pull down, you will see Text Direction options of Left-to-Right and Right-to-Left. Use that to override the problematic text and voila, your problem should be solved.

Please confirm that this fixes the issue for you.

          - Dov

2 replies

Participant
November 18, 2020

i havve he same problem wiht a site <<link deleted by moderator>>

so instead of getting "אברהם"  i get "םהברא"

any ideas?

 

Participant
November 18, 2020

i also just noticed - that the headers remain the same dieciton - just the text switches the order. can that be a clue?

Dov Isaacs
Legend
February 2, 2017

What version and locality of InDesign do you have installed? Unless you have the English/Hebrew version installed, this type of problem is not readily resolved.

          - Dov

- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
Inspiring
February 2, 2017

I have the English/Hebrew version

Dov Isaacs
Dov IsaacsCorrect answer
Legend
February 2, 2017

Great!

In certain situations where you have certain characters (including numerals, parentheses, etc.) that are used either in a Left-to-Right or Right-to-Left context adjoining Hebrew text, you need to explicitly define such text as Left-to-Right to counteract assumptions (often wrong) made by InDesign.

If you have the Text tool selected, on the task bar at the far right hand corner is a “hamburger menu” that if you pull down, you will see Text Direction options of Left-to-Right and Right-to-Left. Use that to override the problematic text and voila, your problem should be solved.

Please confirm that this fixes the issue for you.

          - Dov

- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)