Option for Paragraph Direction missing in latest Version of Illustrator (Arabic)

Please Follow these steps In Newes version of creative cloud desktop. 

Illustrator gives you a ton of problems in this regard, and many of the answers here are correct.
If you would like a simple solution and also have Photoshop, Photoshop will let you paste RTL and write RTL with no problem, and you can bring that into Illustrator as a smart object.
This is useful when you are trying to include a bit of RTL text in an otherwise LTR document - in my case, I was trying to incoroporte some Yiddish into a design, and forund this workaround by accident.

It appears that you don't have the Middle Eastern (ME) version, I'm saying this because you don't have the essential "Right-to-Let Paragraph Direction" component. 

As a matter of fact, the points 2 & 4 in your post up here are irrelevant when you have the ME version of Illustrator since ME version is capable of handling Righ-to-Left languages by default.

Last thing I want to mention is related to the workflow. When you finally get the ME version installed, I recommend that you "Place" the text file into Illustrator instead of Copy & Paste as such method will streamline imported text RTL and LTR into your document with little frustration.

Hi there,

I am really sorry for this frustration. I understand the ME features are not working properly in Illustrator. That's definitely not a typical experience with Illustrator. I just installed ME version on my system and all the features are working absolutely fine. 
                

Looks like you are still not on the Arabic version of Illustrator. Arabic version of Illustrator doesn't have

"Show Indic Options" in Preferences (Edit >Preferences >Type) and "Middle Eastern & South Asian Composer" in Pragraph panel (See screenshot). These options are available in English version. 

Uninstall Illustrator with Cleaner tool (https://helpx.adobe.com/in/creative-cloud/kb/cc-cleaner-tool-installation-problems.html).

Remove all the Illustrator 2019 (v23) folders manually from the following locations:

• For MAC:
  ~/Library/Preferences
  ~/Library/Caches
  ~/Library/Application support
  /Library/Application support

• For Windows:
  C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\Adobe
  C:\Program Files\Adobe

Once it is uninstalled, change the language in Creative Cloud to English Arabic.

Reinstall Illustrator. 

Let us know if that helps or if you need any further assistance.

Regards,

Srishti

Nearly every sentence in the help topic regarding arabic language regarding Illustrator in the Adobe Help page is not applicable or simply untrue. See link here: https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/arabic-hebrew.html

1.) The option for changing text direction is simply MISSING in my paragraph panel (newest version 13), even though I set the "indic" option in preferences. I am using the "Adobe Arabic" font and have set "Middle Eastern South Asian Every Line Composer" for my paragraph style!

2,) Contrary to what it says in the help article, cutting & pasting mixed paragraph content (english and arabic) from Word to Illustrator does not work at ALL. I am trying to copy and paste mixed content where the words are in arabic and the numbers and / or dates are not (they are english or regular numerals). But instead of copying it over as it is in Word, Illustrator converts the Number into arabic. I have tried using various fonts, to no avail (so I am exluding this to be a font issue).  

I have been trying to solve this issues for hours. Need to fininsh a tech manual with 22 languages which all work half way decent except arabic. 

The option for LTR and RTL is missing in my paragraph panel. I am not the only one complaining, if you google the issue you will find multiple forum entries with no answers offered what-so-ever. It would not surprise me, if Adobe just got rid of the LTR and RTL options anf didn't tell anyone about it and failed (like so often before) to make the correction in the help pages. At least after long hours of research, I still could not find an answer to the problem. 

Anyone have an idea why copy and paste from Word is not working as it should and as it is promised in the Adobe Help page? I have set all necessary options for arabic, so I need a new idea. I am simply trying to copy a mixed text paragraph (english and arabic) from word to Illustrator, but this is not working, as Illustrator auto-converts numerals into arabic. It would help if I had the manual option to switch between LTR and RTL at character level. But surprisingly, this option is simply disappeared from the menu. GONE. 

Any help, clues and work-arounds (best of all) is greatly appreciated. In the meantime I will try to import the text into indesign and convert to curves, then import to Illustrator. 

Thanks in advance for your help!