Right to left text selection with cursor keys

[Prince Oceans]

InDesign 2015, Windows 10, in Urdu (right to left) text, if I try to select a character or word using cursor key, it select to wrong direction, i.e. Shift + Left cursor key selects character on right, Preference>Right-to-Left>Cursor Control>Cursor Movement is already set to 'Visual' and it work well for cursor movement.

Edit: Just checked similar situation in Word 2016, there's no such problem, right to left text selection with cursor key working fine.

[amaarora]

Hi,

That it because you are writing in right to left direction, the selection is also done in that direction.

-Aman

[Prince Oceans]

Sorry Aman, you didn't get my point, let me explain

in right to left text, cursor is here

Now if you press Shift+Ctrl+Left Arrow, what selection do you expect A or B

A)

B)

[Prince Oceans]

It should be B but it is selecting A, if you press Ctrl+Left Arrow key it move cursor one word left, that is correct behavior, while for selecting it move to wrong direction.

[Zaid Al Hilali]

Although this cursor behavior is a nuisance to new users, we long time users have accustomed to it. Middle Eastern version of Adobe products specifically InDesign and Illustrator have always used the "Logical" cursor control when using keyboard arrows.

We have complained about this behavior for years before Adobe used to Arabize/localize the product, it was Winsoft.fr who handled localization and the programmers thought this "Logical" behavior is the correct cursor movement. Many years passed by before they add the above shown drop menu so that users have the choice of using Logical or Visual.

Having said that, changing this preferences control to Visual didn't change selecting behavior as you have found out. So we had to live with it, got used to it, and stopped complaining about it. It is still nuisance as you have found out and I believe we need to raise this matter with InDesign and Illustrator development teams to include better controls for users sanity.

[Zaid Al Hilali · Accepted solution]

Even though this bug is not Adobe's fault to start with, they inherited it from Winsoft time when Winsoft used to localize Adobe applications for many years. However this is still a bug and it's about time we take it to Adobe through proper channels unlike previous times when we spoke about it verbally to Adobe staff.

I reported this bug and if you wish, you can vote for it to grab attention.

[Graphicati]

Hi Zaid,

I hope my message find you well,

Thank you for your great post, and it helped to fix the cursor behavior in InDesign. I'm still having the same issue in PS and AI, have these software solved it or not yet?

If yes "as I hope" please share the solution with us. If not "we will live with it" as you said 🙂

BR

[Zaid Al Hilali]

Hi Graphicati,

The RTL cursor movement control is available in Adobe InDesign only, we don't have this option in Photoshop or Illustrator.

InDesign by large is used for long articles compared to Photoshop and Illustrator that's why we have more text controls there - in my opinion.

[adamm60405533]

Hi,

How can I do it Adobe InDesign CC 2019? 

[innovative_adventurer5D56]

Hi,
you have to use ME type tool  

all languages that writes from right to left like arabic, urdu must use this tool, if you use Type tool the highlight and selection will be from left to right and also the direction.

you must setup your CC for this.

from creative cloud app, preferences,

يدعم العربية

[alonemanuel]

THIS IS STILL A PROBLEM IN 2022 - absurd

[Kufpec]

this was very good inforamtion. it worked for me. Thank you very much.