MENA Indesign is defaulting to right-to-left. Pdfs are arranged right to left if i organize pages

[SilbStu]

I have gotten the MENA version because I have to do some docs using Arabic. I got that figured out OK, but now I want to go back to creating a document in English. However, when I import text from Word the placement arrow icon points from right to left. The continuation icon on a the text boxes is at lower left instead of lower right, and when I make a pdf, the pages display from left to right.

When I create a new text box on the page, or if I copy from Word and paste into a text box it acts normally. . However, when I make a pdf the pages still array right to left.

[Willi Adelberger]

Easiest way: Create an empty document in a LTR document, best in a LTR only version and import all styles when no document is open,

Create a template for each language.

[SilbStu]

thank you but i don't really understand...what do I have to do to create this LTR document?

[Willi Adelberger]

If you add another language as it is with MENA versions the case, the last installed version will be the default language.

But often the additional language and their settings are only needed for not so many documents. What you need on a daily basis is your own language.

There are many settings and it is easy to oversee and to forget them. You will want to set up the program that everything is in its settings on the correct place and if you work in a team, in the same way as your colleagues are working and used to it. 

Bevore you install othe languages, save a simple default document in that language. 

Do get everything stick for any new document you have to cange the proberties when no document is open. 
Therefore is the easiest and fastest way to take that default  document where all settings are correct as you need them.

When no document is open, import all language relevant styles — paragraph,  object, table and cell styles —and let them override the new defaults. 
Now you go — without any document open—to document setup and change binding, size and units and close that dialogue. 
Quit InDesign to sae all changes in case of an unexpected crash.  

When you create a new document you get all settings what you have dine, when no document was open. 

You can go one step further to create for each setting (e. g. language, client, purpose, …) an INDT template file to avoid repeating steps you will always do in the same ir similar way. 

[SilbStu]

do you mean to take an existing document, clean everything out and rework it as needed for a new document?

[Joel Cherney]

No, I'm not 100% sure what Willi is suggesting, but the 98% that I'm seeing here is entirely correct. When you click File -> New (or whack Command+N, or whatever it is you do to start a new document) you have some choices, right? One of those is the binding, where you can choose spine-right or spine-left. Default with a new install of MENA InDesign would be spine-right. If you choose spine left, then that should fix your RTL PDFs

BUT BUT BUT

there are dozens of preferences related to directionality that are set up as RTL defaults in MENA Indy. So, with no documents open, you can:

• import a default set of LTR styles
• long-click on the type tool and choose "Type Tool" instead of "ME Type Tool" which means that your new text frames that you draw with this tool will show LTR behavior instead of RTL behavior
• and so on

On top of that, you could start a new LTR document with the spine-left binding, then set it up so it's all as LTR as you could possibly want, then Save As an INDT. That's an InDesign Template, and it's really useful when you might want to start one of a variety of types of documents. I don't start many documents myself (I am far more likely to work in my clients' completed documents than to build something from the ground up) but even so I have some templates called "EN-US" and "Euro" and "RTL" and "South Asian" and "SE Asian" and "Ethiopic" and so on. Each one has distinct settings for the destination locale. 

[SilbStu]

Thanks, I figured out the binding thing, but I cannot seem to set other parameters and make them stick...

There was a time when you could open InDesign without a document open and set defaults, that doesn't work anymore.

I have all the paragraph specs and fonts set to "Normal" right to left and still when I import I get this right facing cursor, and the continuation box is at lower left.

I don't have the right to left type tool selected

When I create a new text box by importing it jumps back to the RTL in my paragraph window...regardless of how I may have adjusted anything else. If I create a text box and paste into it instead of importing it seems to work OK...Adobe chat told me to re-install, but that seems a pain when I have to go back and forth between languages

[SilbStu]

D'oh....I said "normal" right to left, but I meant "normal" left to right, for English. Maybe I just have to learn my left and my right....