How to switch text direction

[virtualdoodling]

I see in this link (https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/arabic-hebrew.html) that there should be the ability to switch the text direction but I have not been able to make those features available in my most up to date version of InDesign. I have also redownloaded it with the language set to English (يدعم العربية ) and the options that "should" be there are not. I am on a Mac in case that changes anything but I can say my options are not the same as what is shown on this webpage. I would kindly appreciate someones help figuring this out because it is driving me a little crazy.

[Diane Burns · Accepted solution]

Setting your language as you did should have downloaded the ME version. It's been awhile since I've done it, but perhaps you should uninstall your InDesign first, then redownload set to English Arabic.

Do you have a lot of ME text to typeset, or just a few words/paragraphs? If just a few, you can use this trick:

1. Draw a text frame

2. With the Command key held down, choose Type menu > Fill with Placeholder Text.

3. You'll see a menu that lets you control language. Choose Arabic, and flow the text.

4. Make a paragraph style from this text. It will include, as you can see in General Paragraph Style settings, RTL text direction as well as World-Ready composer set. You can change the font, size, etc, and apply it to other text.

This will not let you reverse thread frames or reverse page direction, but it works great where you have just words or paragraphs to set in Arabic.

[virtualdoodling]

Thank you! I did try to re-download since everywhere I looked seemed to say that should have done it. I did find that I had a setting to "save preferences from previous version" enabled in my update settings, once I switched that off I was able to download the ME version with the settings I wanted. I guess one smart feature that was being a little too smart for me in this situation.