Defaults for InDesign Middle East version / out ports / Text direction

[ukzembla]

I mostly typeset English language books but have worked on a few right-to-left titles using Hebrew and Arabic. To do that, I started working with the ME version of InDesign, and mostly everything is fine, except for the fact that when I paste text in from the clipboard the out ports default to being on the left-hand side (for right to left languages). I've done everything I can think of to make this default to the other way round but nothing seems to work – I want English to be the default, since it's 99% of what I do. I've set the preferences / languages and spellcheck to English, closed all docs and altered the default object styles, and there's no change. I think the issue is in the object settings, "Story Options / Story Writing Direction" is defaulting to right to left. When a new text box is auto generated by a paste command (whether from copy-pasting text within InDesign or from outside), it creates a text frame (weirdly styled as "[None]" rather than "[Basic Text Frame]") with an override automatically applied to set the writing direction as right to left. I can clear this, but it's easy to forget and quite annoying. Can anyone suggest if this is a bug or a "feature", and if there's any workaround? Ideally I think when you paste text, if it's creating a new text frame it should be [Basic Text Frame] with no overrides applied! This seems pretty niche as googling "story writing direction" yields all of THREE results - any help much appreciated!

[Rishabh_Tiwari]

Hi @ukzembla ,

Thank you for reaching out. It sounds like you are experiencing a default behavior in InDesign's Middle Eastern version that may not be optimal for your workflow. However, a few possible workarounds may help you avoid having to clear the override each time you paste text.

• One possible solution is to create a new document preset set to English as the default language and paragraph direction. To do this, go to File > New > Document and set up the document to your specifications. Then, click on the "Save Preset" button at the bottom of the New Document dialog box and give your new preset a name. You can select this preset when you create a new document, which should default to English.
• You can try using the "Paste without Formatting" command (Shift+Ctrl+V on Windows or Shift+Command+V on Mac) instead of the regular paste command. This will paste the text without any formatting or overrides, which may help avoid the issue with the text frame direction.

You can also refer to this article on Arabic and Hebrew features in InDesign.

Thanks

Rishabh

[ukzembla]

Hi, that doesn't solve the issue – please can you try testing this out? The language presets and defaults are all set to left-to-right, English. The only time it's an issue is when I paste text and InDesign automatically generates a text frame – in which case it automatically overrides the language direction. If I clear overrides, it corrects the position. If I paste into a frame I draw myself with the text tool, the out ports are in the correct location. The issue is with InDesign autogenerating the text frame when I click paste – it should be 1. set with the story writing direction to match that of the document / default; and 2. a [basic text frame] style, not [none] since I'm pasting text, not anything else. I don't really care much about 2. but 1. is important, as it's slow manually drawing a lot of text boxes.

Thanks!