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mtcte
mtcte
Participating Frequently
May 15, 2026
Answered

LTR Reading Doc but RTL tab ruler!

  • May 15, 2026
  • 2 replies
  • 55 views

I occasionally have to enter Hebrew into the documents I create. I set it as World-Ready Paragraph Composer so that it reads RTL (just the Hebrew). I'm currently working on a doc that has NO Hebrew and only English LTR copy BUT when I try to set tabs, the ruler is RTL! I have already uninstalled InDesign once and redownloaded it. HELP! 

 

    Correct answer Joel Cherney

    I receieved an INDD from ​@mtcte and found that, as they reported, they have a paragraph set up with right-to-left paragraph direction and the Adobe Paragraph Composer active, which should technically be impossible. I was able to reset the settings with the tools in my English (Arabic) install. Frankly, anyone could have - by making a new paragraph style that wasn’t corrupted with right-to-left behaviors, and applying it. 

     

    And, as an aside - while it’s totally the case that you can handle some Hebrew in plain-vanilla English InDesign, there are times when it’s nice to be able to reverse paragraph direction. Or it’s nice to be able to select other numeral systems, or mess with the character directionality of parentheses, or handle cantillation marks or niqqud or whatever. If you never need to do any of that, then you don’t need the English (Hebrew) version installed. 

     

     

    2 replies

    mtcte
    mtcteAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    May 20, 2026

    Thanks for your help, Joel.

    Joel Cherney
    Community Expert
    Joel CherneyCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    May 15, 2026

    Did you use a Hebrew specific version of the application? Plain-vanilla English InDesign certainly has the capacity to handle Hebrew, but it’s possible for its defaults to accidentally get stuck in RTL mode, which is easy to turn off if you already have an “English (Hebrew)” or “English (Arabic)” version installed - there’s a paragraph direction button in the Paragraph panel:

     

    It looks like your English “Include photos...” paragraph there is marked as right-to-left. If you don’t happen to have that “English (Hebrew)” locale installed, I think you should be able to just turn the composer here back to the Adobe Paragraph Composer, which lacks support for RTL paragraphs. 

     

    Alternately, if you wanted the scorched-earth solution, you could uninstall InDesign, then use the Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool to make sure your removal was complete before reinstalling. 

      mtcte
      mtcteAuthor
      Participating Frequently
      May 16, 2026

      I do have this problematic line set to Adobe Paragraph Composer. I’ve always only had the vanilla English version of the Adobe apps. If I install the MENA version of InDesign, are there any other differences other than the ability to set for LTR or RTL reading? Just FYI, I’ve been working at my job for 17 years using Hebrew periodically and I’ve never had this issue before!

       

      Joel Cherney
      Community Expert
      Joel CherneyCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      May 17, 2026

      > I do have this problematic line set to Adobe Paragraph Composer. 

      That means that something is corrupt, in your document and/or in your installation of InDesign. One easy thing you might try before going after your InDesign installation would be to start a new empty document, then grab the page(s) from your document with the damaged English paragraph, then drop them into the Pages panel in new empty file, to see if that fixes your broken paragraph.

      >  If I install the MENA version of InDesign, are there any other differences other than the ability to set for LTR or RTL reading? Just FYI, I’ve been working at my job for 17 years using Hebrew periodically

      I imagine that you must be putting one Hebrew word or phrase in the middle of an English paragraph; I can’t imagine that you could be working in right-to-left languages for seventeen years and never needed to set a paragraph to right-to-left, which you can do in the MENA version of InDesign, but not your English one. But installing a right-to-left-capable version of InDesign won’t help you fix this broken paragraph. 

      If you want, I’d be happy to look at your broken paragraph to see exactly how it is broken and whether or not it’s easily fixable. You can send me a PM with a link to the file, or I can give you my email address, if that works better for you.

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