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chriskirschner
chriskirschner
Participant
June 3, 2026
Question

Hebrew text reversed in mixed LTR/RTL headings and TOC — World-Ready Composer active

  • June 3, 2026
  • 3 replies
  • 43 views

Title: Hebrew text reversed in mixed LTR/RTL headings and TOC — World-Ready Composer active

Product: Adobe InDesign (Windows)
Composer: Adobe World-Ready Paragraph Composer (active)

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I have a book with chapter and poem title headings that contain both English and Hebrew text on the same line, for example:

  Passing Passing... הָבֶל הָבֶל

The Hebrew word הָבֶל (with diacriticals) appears reversed in two situations:

1. In the body heading using the Poem Title paragraph style (Adobe Hebrew font)
2. In the auto-generated TOC for both the chapter heading and poem title styles

What I have tried:
- World-Ready Paragraph Composer is active (set in Preferences > Advanced Type)
- Paragraph style Middle East Character Formats: Character Direction set to Default (setting to RTL flips the entire line including English)
- Inserting Unicode Right-to-Left Embedding (U+202B) before the Hebrew and Pop Directional Formatting (U+202C) after via Type > Insert Special Character > Unicode Markers
- Inserting Right-to-Left Mark (U+200F) around the Hebrew
- Inserting these markers via ExtendScript to bypass clipboard bidi reversal
- Applying a character style with Character Direction: Right to Left to just the Hebrew characters
- The Chapter Heading style displays correctly in the body using Garamond + no character style, but the same Hebrew reverses in the TOC

Key observations:
- The Paragraph Style Options dialog does not show a Paragraph Direction field, only Character Direction
- Setting Character Direction to RTL on the paragraph style reverses the entire line
- The Hebrew characters appear reversed letter-by-letter (הָבֶל becomes לֶבָה) suggesting visual vs logical order rendering
- The TOC is generated from the heading styles and reverses the Hebrew regardless of markers in the source heading
- Clipboard pastes from Word or other sources also reverse the Hebrew on paste into InDesign

Question: How do I correctly render Hebrew with diacriticals inside a predominantly English heading line, and have it appear correctly in an auto-generated TOC?

Note: Claude and I spent hours on this, and Claude wrote this summary

Thank you

    3 replies

    chriskirschner
    chriskirschnerAuthor
    Participant
    June 4, 2026

    Follow-up: Page number lands on wrong side for Chapter Heading TOC entry only

    Big time Thank BOTH of you for the earlier advice — applying WRC and Paragraph Direction LTR in the paragraph styles fixed the Hebrew display in the body text and in most TOC entries.

    One remaining problem: TOC for page 80 (the Chapter Heading entry) has the page number landing at the LEFT side of the line, next to the Hebrew, instead of at the right margin with dot leaders running left from it. The Poem Title entry immediately below it (line 81) displays correctly.

    What I have verified:
    - Both TOC-Chapter and TOC-Poem Title styles have identical settings: LTR paragraph direction, Adobe World-Ready Single-line Composer, same right-aligned tab stop with dot leader
    - Changing the Entry Style for Chapter Heading to TOC-Poem Title in the TOC setup makes no difference — page 80 entry still has the page number on the wrong side
    - The Chapter Heading body frame is now its own independent frame, matching the structure of the Poem Title frame
    - The source Chapter Heading text in Story Editor shows: Passing Passing...הָבֶל הָבֶל (English first in logical order)
    - The source Poem Title text in Story Editor shows: Passing Passing...הָבֶל הָבֶל (also English first)
    - Both headings look identical in the body text
    - I have tried inserting LTR Embedding, RTL Embedding, LTR Mark, and Pop Directional Formatting markers before and after the Hebrew in the source heading — all either have no effect or flip the entire line

    The structure of both titles is: English text ... Hebrew Hebrew (with ellipsis between English and Hebrew)

    Since changing the TOC Entry Style has no effect, and the source text logical order appears identical, I am at a loss to explain why these two entries behave differently. Is there something about how the TOC generator handles Chapter Heading style differently from Poem Title style? Would it help to share the INDD file?

    Thank you

    Copying screenshot of TOC to illustrate

    Joel Cherney
    Community Expert
    Joel CherneyCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    June 5, 2026

    Well, we could guess at what the problem is, or you could post your INDD file with a TOC.

     

    I’m going to guess that you have some local formatting applied to your heading on page 80 - as in, you selected some text and changed its text direction, not by making a RTL or LTR or Hebrew character style. So if you go to the Passing Passing header on page 80 and select one Hebrew letter, I bet that the name of the paragraph style of the header on page 80 will display a + next to the style name. Remove that override, and I suspect that the text will behave correctly in the TOC. If it’s not an override, it might be a character style that you applied to it yesterday, before posting? 

     

    However, that’s just a guess. It’s awfully close to TᴀW’s speculation from yesterday, honestly: 

    the direction comes through perfectly, unless the paragraph style you’re assigning to TOC entries is not using a WR composer, or some character style is being picked up that is forcing LTR direction.)

     

    It is, in fact, supposed Just Work so long as the WRC is turned on. If the WRC is on, and it’s not automagically rendering Latin text as LTR and Hebrew text as RTL, then there aren’t that many non-bug explanations. 

    chriskirschner
    chriskirschnerAuthor
    Participant
    June 5, 2026

    Thanks. Here it is. If you are interested in the content, you get a copy if you wish. Is it OK if I add you in the acknowledgements ?

     

    TᴀW
    TᴀW
    Legend
    June 3, 2026

    If it’s literally just a question of having some Hebrew words in the middle of an English paragraph, absolutely nothing special needs to be done beyond applying one of the two World Ready composers to that paragraph.

    The Hebrew direction will then take care of itself, including the nikkud (diacritics).

    If that is not happening, then double-check that the WRC is indeed applied to the paragraph.

    Also, it’s not impossible that the Hebrew words have been typed in backwards to make them look correct.

    Paragraph styles and character styles are not necessary to make this particular aspect of the thing work.

     

    (With a TOC, you do need obviously to start using para styles. But that’s fine, the direction comes through perfectly, unless the paragraph style you’re assigning to TOC entries is not using a WR composer, or some character style is being picked up that is forcing LTR direction.)

    id-extras.com | InDesign tools & scripts for typesetters, form designers, and translators
    Joel Cherney
    Community Expert
    Joel CherneyCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    June 3, 2026

    That is usually true, but there has been a bit of an uptick as of 21.4 of people coming in here with WRC and Hebrew language applied with local formatting but still showing LTR behavior. Feels like it might be faster for someone who has to make a functional bidirectional TOC to make new paragraph styles, as opposed to trying to figure out exactly which errant bit of local formatting applied over the last hours is causing undesired LTR behavoir. 

     

    Another technique just about as fast as “you should make paragraph styles!” would be “if TᴀW’s advice doesn’t work, post an INDD.” 

     

      TᴀW
      TᴀW
      Legend
      June 3, 2026

      Interesting.

      id-extras.com | InDesign tools & scripts for typesetters, form designers, and translators
      Joel Cherney
      Community Expert
      Joel CherneyCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      June 3, 2026

      - The Paragraph Style Options dialog does not show a Paragraph Direction field, only Character Direction

       

      That can’t be right. It should be the first thing in Indents and Spacing. (Not in “Middle East Character Formats”.) If it’s not there, let us know, and we’ll guide you through resetting preferences or reinstalling, but I’m willing to guess that it’s probably right there.

       

      The most important part of what you need to do is to not trust InDesign’s local formatting (“ World-Ready Paragraph Composer is active (set in Preferences > Advanced Type”) and instead use paragraph styles and character styles.  So, you’d want to set the WRC in the “Justification” section of every single paragraph style that is going to need to be able to render Hebrew RTL.

       

      In order to have a paragraph with mixed English and Hebrew, you’re going to want to make either

      1. a LTR English paragraph style, with the World-Ready Composer turned on, accompanied by a Hebrew character style, or
      2. a RTL Hebrew paragraph style with an English character style

      Every paragraph style that needs to display Hebrew - including all of your TOC styles - should be set up in this way. That’s how you can get your Hebrew to render correctly in the middle of English paragraphs. You shouldn’t need to force character direction in your style, if language is specified. 

       

      I would advise against using Unicode control characters in this context - that is a very Claude suggesion. You can use them in this context, but they aren’t necessary. Getting a very simple LTR English paragraph with a very simple Hebrew character style is where you’d want to start. 

       

       

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