Indesign - hebrew text - button left-right direction

[angelam62281529]

I cannot find the button of the left-right direction in the paragraph menu.

Can you help me, please?

[TᴀW]

Should be there. Are you sure you've got the Middle Easter version of InDesign installed? (One way of checking: Under the Layout menu you should see an option called "Reverse Layout" which is only in the ME versions.)

[angelam62281529]

How do I install the middle East version?

[Steve Werner]

This thread explains how:

Arabic text right to left - Help!

Choose the English - Hebrew option

[angelam62281529]

Thank you a lot!

[Diane Burns]

Please DM me your email address, and I'll send  you some scripts you can use in the English version. Simply run the appropriate script on paragraphs as needed. May be easier, and if you rarely do Hebrew, you really don't want the ME version. They are originally for an older version of ID, but I believe they still run fine.

(Don't see a way to attach them here; you can try this Dropbox link Dropbox - r2l_scripts_for_id.zip - Simplify your life.)

[Cyndee M]

@Diane Burns --

As a ME user, I don't understand why you would say it is easier to use your scripts and why you wouldn't want the ME version if your use of Hebrew is rare. The ME version allows you to do anything that the standard English does with easy, fully integrated use of Hebrew for when you need it. Having used it since it became available through CC, I have never seen a downside to using it when Hebrew was not required. Plus, it is free to a CC user.

[Diane Burns]

@Cyndee M: Thanks for your comment, good question.

The primary reason I say this is that the default preferences are set in the ME versions in a way that is not ideal for English/Roman languages, e.g. the World-Ready composer is set. This has caused some users difficulty and extra work.

Of course, these preferences can be changed, but why take the extra steps when you don't often need ME features, and something like these scripts work well? It's a bit of overfill, IMHO.

[Cyndee M]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Diane+Burns  wrote

@Cyndee M: Thanks for your comment, good question.

The primary reason I say this is that the default preferences are set in the ME versions in a way that is not ideal for English/Roman languages, e.g. the World-Ready composer is set. This has caused some users difficulty and extra work.

Of course, these preferences can be changed, but why take the extra steps when you don't often need ME features, and something like these scripts work well? It's a bit of overfill, IMHO.

Changing the preferences takes but a minute or two. Then you have all Hebrew support as part of the program and don't need to deal with external scripts. Much simpler.

[Diane Burns]

Thanks for your reply, @Cyndee M.

We have a different opinion, and that's a good thing for others to learn from. Not to convince you, but to inform those who may be following this thread, I'll just mention a couple more points.

The English/Euro version of InDesign contains *all* the features, of ME. It's simply that these features are not exposed in the user interface of the English version. Because they are exposed in the ME version, these features can sometimes creep in where you don't want them. As I recall, you can sometimes have ME features, such as paragraph direction or kashidas, show up in paragraph style definitions when they haven't been necessarily applied to Roman text. This is confusing to some users, and I for one like my styles to read "clean."

It also matters, of course, how often Hebrew or Arabic text is needed. If it is truly an occasional or one-off situation, I would not download the ME version and then be stuck with it for all my projects. But that is just my opinion.

For those interested, more information on this very issue, along with some template files that also introduce ME features to the English version of ID, can be found in my Lynda.com course "InDesign: Multilingual Publishing"

InDesign: Multilingual Publishing Strategies

(Can also be found on LinkedIn Learning.)

Hope that helps.

[Cyndee M]

Yes, I am well aware that the ME features are actually part of the standard version of ID but are not shown in the UI and can be accessed other ways.

While you are theoretically right that a user may wind up with an ME feature in a style, etc. where they don't want it, that doesn't happen once you learn how to use the features properly. I would much rather have the features at hand and learn to use them properly (which is not difficult); I can't imagine someone feeling "stuck" with them.

I would be interested to hear what others have to say on this subject, but it looks like you and I will just need to agree to disagree on this subject.