How to change text direction in the latest version?

[HK5ED897]

I'm using Indesign 2023 and I'm trying to type Arabic. I turned on the Adobe World Ready option in the Paragraph panel, but the direction of the text is wrong. symbols end up in the opposite area instead of the correct area. 

I looked at YouTube videos and the place where they go does not exist in my version, where should I go for this? to make the text direction RTL for a certain paragraph? 

Thanks!

[Joel Cherney]

Well, I'd guess that you don't have the Arabic version installed, then. If you shut down Indesign and go to the Creative Cloud app, go to File -> Preferences -> Apps -> Default install language, I bet you'll see "English". But if you pull down the dropdown, you could change to "English اللغة العربية" and reinstall. It won't take long at all, and when you restart InDesign, I bet you'll see the tools you need to set Arabic language and right-to-left paragraph direction. 

[HK5ED897]

Will that change all of the program into Arabic? I just need it for this one project, I don't speak the language to use it full term. 

in Photoshop and Illustrator I have the option to change text direction with one click in the paragraph styles, I didn't install anything for that just a quick change in the preferences. Doesnt  InDesign has something similar in its preferences? 

thanks for you comment, I appreciate it!

[Joel Cherney]

Yeah, PS and Illustrator both have some minimal complex-text handling tools. InDesign's handling of RTL text is rather more complicated & more robust, for a variety of reasons that probably don't interest you, but the upshot is that the tools for handling Arabic are exposed only in "Middle East/North Africa" versions of the app. The version I was directing you to download was the Middle Eastern toolset with the English language interface. So you wouldn't have an Arabic UI after reinstalling. The tools are all there in your en_US app, but they're not in the UI.

However, if you don't wan't to go through that reinstallation, you can just save this in your Scripts folder. All of those RTL-handling tools that are in the ME editions are in the plain vanilla English tools, but they're not in the UI, and are only accessible via script. I grabbed it from an article by Thomas Phinney about doing RTL work in CS4, so it's been kicking around for a while...

//DESCRIPTION: Toggles R2L and L2R paragraph direction to selected text
main ();
function main ()
	{
	try
		{
		if (app.selection[0].paragraphDirection == ParagraphDirectionOptions.rightToLeftDirection)
			app.selection[0].paragraphDirection = ParagraphDirectionOptions.leftToRightDirection
		else
			app.selection[0].paragraphDirection = ParagraphDirectionOptions.rightToLeftDirection
		}
	catch (_){}
	}

However, this will only work for you if you don't need to assign language, or deal with numeral style or numeral direction. If you have to do more than just flip the paragraph direction, you'd be best served by just downloading the ME version with the English interface. But, all these things are accessible via scripting, if you'd rather go in that direction. 

[brandingworks]

Thank you Joel for this tip! I spent hours trying to find how to get the text direction options installed on my version of InDesign. No where could I find it through Adobe's help documents. This was easy to install and did the trick and you save my day! The only note, that any customized workspaces I had saved got overwritten and lost. 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

On Windows there is a trick with changing info in the Registry to get all the RTL functionality in EN version.

https://www.indiscripts.com/post/2009/10/switching-indesigns-ui-language-in-windows

Here is an option on Mac:

https://creativepro.com/change-ui-language-indesign-cs6-cc/

[PeggySue59]

I have a similar problem but I would like to be able to set just one or two words in Persian within English text. My client sent me the manuscript for the book in Word and I can see that when I change the font in Indesign to a Persian font, the direction of the word is still left to right. I know how to set a whole paragraph reading right to left, but is there a script to assign just one or two words that will read right to left WITHIN English text? thanks!

[PeggySue59]

Hmmm. I just changed the whole paragraph which includes both English and Persion to World-Ready Paragraph composer and seems to work for both languages. Fingers crossed it works throughout the book.

[Joel Cherney]

It will mostly work. The WRC can usually tell from context how to lay text out.. But some characters can be laid out according to either LTR or RTL conventions, such as hyphens or parentheses. In those cases, sometimes I have to select a few characters, or even a single misbehaving space, and mark it with an overt character direction in the flyout menu in the Character panel (or, better, in a Character Style)  as RTL or LTR. If your book has lengthy bilingual parenthetical texts, for example, you might find that some manual adjustment is necessary.

[PeggySue59]

Thanks Joel for the info. I can't see where to change the character direction in the character panel nor character style though. Using the latest CC on a Mac. 

[Joel Cherney · Accepted solution]

You said that you knew where to set a whole paragraph to run RTL, so I assume that you have a version of InDesign installed that has full RTL tools. If you're not using the right version of InDesign, these screen captures won't make much sense:

[PeggySue59]

I'm using English ID version 19.5 which looks like the latest version. I don't have the character style flyouts with the character direction as you have shown, nor the Middle East Character formats option. So far though the paragraph style using the world ready seems to work. thanks!

[PeggySue59]

Finally figured out that I need to have the Arabic version installed. duh....... thanks for your help!

[Kateryna Zaichuk]