Word paragraph right to left

Word for Microsoft 365 Word 2021 Word 2019 Word 2016 Word 2013 Word 2010 Word 2007 More…Less

Alignment determines the appearance and orientation of the edges of the paragraph: left-aligned text, right-aligned text, centered text, or justified text, which is aligned evenly along the left and right margins. For example, in a paragraph that is left-aligned (the most common alignment), the left edge of the paragraph is flush with the left margin.

Vertical alignment determines the position of the text within a section of a document relative to the top and bottom margins, and is often used to create a cover page.

  1. Select the text that you want to align.

  2. On the Home tab, in the Paragraph group, click Align Left or Align Right .

  1. Select the text that you want to center.

  2. On the Home tab, in the Paragraph group, click Center .

  1. Select the text that you want to center.

  2. On the Layout or Page Layout tab, click the Dialog Box Launcher Dialog box button in the Page Setup group, and then click the Layout tab.

  3. In the Vertical alignment box, click Center.

  4. In the Apply to box, click Selected text, and then click OK.

When you justify text in Word, you give your text straight edges on both sides of the paragraph. Justifying extends each line of your text to the left and right margins. Justifying text might make the last line of text in a paragraph considerably shorter than the other lines.

  1. Select the text you want to justify.

  2. On the Home tab, in the Paragraph group, click Justify .

Tips: 

  • In the Paragraph group, click the Dialog Box Launcher Dialog box button, and select the Alignment drop-down menu to set your justified text.

    You can open the Paragraph dialog box by clicking the Expand icon.

    In the Paragraph dialog box, sent the direction of the alignment.

  • You can also use the keyboard shortcut, Ctrl + J to justify your text.

In Office Word 2007, you can choose from a selection of predesigned cover pages to create a professional-looking document quickly and easily.

  1. On the Insert tab, in the Pages group, click Cover Page.

    Word Ribbon Image

  2. Click the cover page that you want.

    A cover page is always added to the beginning of the open document.

See also

Adjust indents and spacing

Need more help?

Several languages such as Arabic, Persian, Urdu or Hebrew are usually written from right to left. Today we will learn how to shift the writing direction in Office 2016/2019/365 from the default Left To Right (LTR) into Right To Left direction (RTL). For convenience, we are providing detailed instructions for Word and Outlook; however process is similar for other Office apps such as Excel and PowerPoint.

Set Word paragraph defaults to right to left

To ensure that your Word document default writing direction is RTL, proceed as following:

  1. Open a new Microsoft Word document.
  2. In the Home tab, locate the Paragraph section in the Ribbon.
  3. Hit the small arrow at the bottom right side of the section as shown below:
  1. The Paragraph Settings dialog will open up.
  2. In the General section, you’ll notice the Alignment combo box.
  3. Set the Alignment value to be Right.
  4. Select Right-to-left check box below.
  5. At the bottom of the dialog hit the Set as Default button.
  6. In the next dialog, select to apply this setting to all documents based on the normal.dotm template.

Word right to left writing

If you are not able to locate the RTL direction buttons in Word, proceed as following:

  • Open your Word document, click on File and select Options.
  • In the customize ribbon, click on the drop down box and select All commands.
2015-10-13 14_30_35-Word Options
  • Then search for the Left to Right and Right to Left in the options.
  • Press on New Group at the bottom and rename it as you need.
  • Add both LTR and RTL in the created group and select OK to add it in the Ribbon.

2015-10-13 14_31_35-Word Options

In Quick Access Toolbar:

  • Open your word document, click on File and select Options.
  • In the Quick Access Toolbar, click on the drop down box and select All commands.

2015-10-13 14_32_17-

  • Then search for Left to Right and Right to Left in the options.
  • Click Add and select OK to add those options in Quick access toolbar.

2015-10-13 14_33_36-Word Options

Right to left switching with Macros

Readers asked me whether there is a way to programmatically set Right to Left for specific pages / ranges and paragraphs in a Word document.

The VBA method .RtlPara allows you to set the paragraph direction for a specific selection using Macros.

Default RTL in Outlook emails

To set right-to-left as your default Outlook email text direction, proceed as following:

  1. In the Outlook ribbon , hit the New Email button to open a new email item.
  2. Navigate to the Format Text tab.
  3. In the Paragraph Ribbon header, hit the small arrow at the bottom right side.
  4. The Paragraph settings dialog opens up.
  5. In the Alignment combo box, select Right.
  6. Then pick right-to-left as the email document Direction.
  7. Hit the Set as default button and apply all changes to all email items created off the normalemail.dotm template.

Note: While writing this tutorial, i have noticed that the Format Text Ribbon (including the Paragraph section) buttons are disabled by default. If so, just click your email item body and the Ribbon will be enabled.

Enable RTL buttons in Outlook

  • Open your Outlook 365 and Click on New mail in the Home ribbon.
  • Now in the opened compose mail dialog box, click on File and select Options.
  • In the Customize Ribbon, click on the drop down box and select All commands.

2015-10-13 14_40_25-Outlook Options

  • Search for Left to Right and Right to Left options.
  • Press on New Group at the bottom and rename it as you need.
  • Add both LTR and RTL in the created group and select OK to add it to the ribbon.

2015-10-13 14_41_01-Outlook Options

In Quick Access Toolbar:

  • In your Outlook then hit New mail in the Home ribbon.
  • In the dialog box of compose mail, click on File and select Options.
  • In the Quick Access Toolbar, click on the drop down box and select All commands.

2015-10-13 14_41_20-

  • Search for Left to Right and Right to Left options.
  • Click Add and select OK to add it in Quick Access Toolbar.

2015-10-13 14_41_50-Outlook Options

  • Hit either LTR to write from Left to Right and RTL to write from Right to Left in both Quick Access Toolbar and Customize ribbon.

How to Set Text Direction in Microsoft Word

99.9% of the time in English language writing, sentences start on the left hand side of the page. This is simply how we do things. But not every language uses this convention.

In Hebrew and Arabic, for instance, sentences begin at the right hand side of the page. Versions of Microsoft Word designed for these languages therefore default to right-to-left.

Whichever version of Word you’re using, though, you can adjust the text direction to suit your particular needs.

Writing in a Right-to-Left Language

If you need to write in a language that reads from right to left and your version of Word doesn’t support this, you will have to install the necessary language and keyboard settings.

If both left-to-right and right-to-left languages are enabled in a document, the ‘LTR’ and ‘RTL’ buttons should appear in the ‘Paragraph’ section of the ‘Home’ tab.

Changing the Text Direction

Even if you’re not writing in a right-to-left language, you may need to change the text direction if you’re using a version of Word where right-to-left is the default or if you’re editing a document written using this format.

In these cases, with Word 2010 or later on a Windows computer, your simplest option is to add buttons to the Quick Access Toolbar. To do this:

You can now use these buttons to set the text direction for all (or part) of a document.

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Alternatively, you can also add these buttons to the main ribbon on Microsoft Word by right clicking on the ribbon and selecting ‘Customize the Ribbon’.

This opens a menu similar to the one used to customize the Quick Access Toolbar. The main difference is that you need to create a new ‘Group’ under one of the main tabs so that the commands have somewhere to appear.

Microsoft Hates Mac Computers

It’s a melodramatic subtitle, we’ll grant you, but it’s the only explanation for why Microsoft Word on the Mac has only recently added support for right-to-left languages.

If you want to change the text direction from right-to-left to left-to-right in older versions of Word on an Apple computer, you’ll need to cheat using this workaround:

  • Copy and paste your text into Pages, where it will default to left-to-right
  • Copy and paste your reformatted text back into Word

You can also change the text direction from left-to-right to right-to-left using this method if you have an appropriate right-to-left script installed on Pages.

The text direction should then match the settings you chose in Pages (or other compatible program). If not, it might be time to get a PC instead.

Especially if your Mac is this old [Photo: w:User:Grm wnr/Wikimedia]

Word left-to-right/right-to-left handling (LTR/RTL) works on two levels: the paragraph level, which can be controlled by right-clicking on the paragraph and choosing the appropriate direction (right-to-left, or left-to-right); and the run level.

Consider the following sequence of letters:

ABCD

This is an example of an LTR run. If we are using an RTL language, even though the sequence of letters is the same order, the text should be displayed in reverse, as a RTL run.

Actual order: ABCD
Visual order: DCBA

When we add netural characters — characters that don’t have rules about whether they are displayed as LTR or RTL — the run direction cannot be determined based on the characters themselves; we have to explicitly define the direction of the run:

(assumes LTR paragraph direction)
Actual order:    ABCD0123
LTR run:         ABCD0123
partial RTL run: DCBA0123
full RTL run:    3210DCBA

When typing, there is no need for you to set the run direction; Word sets the run direction of a given neutral character based on the direction of the current language you are typing in.

In older versions of Word (<=2003), I didn’t find any way to do this through the UI, only through the VBA editor.

  1. Select the text you want to change
  2. Press ALT+F11 to open the VBA programming environment
  3. Click on the Immediate pane; or if it’s not visible, press CTRL+G
  4. Type Selection.LtrRun and press ENTER

Note: To set the run to RTL, type Selection.RtlRun

In Word 2010, you can customize the ribbon by adding the commands LtrRun and RtlRun to set the LTR/RTL run direction.

  • Place the insertion point in the paragraph that you want to change, or select several paragraphs.
  • Do one of the following:
    • To have text begin from the left, click Left-to-Right
      Button image on the Formatting
      toolbar.
    • To have text begin from the right, click Right-to-Left
      Button image on the Formatting toolbar.
  • When you change the paragraph direction, Microsoft Word leaves justified and centered text as it is. In the case of left-aligned or right-aligned text, Word flips the alignment to its opposite. For example, if you have a left-to-right paragraph that is right aligned, such as the date at the top of a letter, clicking Right-to-Left
    Button image results in a right-to-left paragraph that is left aligned.

    ShowAbout tabs in right-to-left documents

    The tab direction follows the paragraph direction— for example, when you change a left-to-right paragraph to a right-to-left paragraph, the left tabs become right tabs— that is, they are repositioned relative to the direction of a paragraph. Center and decimal tab types are not affected by changes in paragraph language or direction.

    Tab leaders extend to the left in right-to-left paragraphs. When you select Show/Hide
    Paragraph mark
    Button image, right-to-left tabs are represented by the symbol Left-pointing horizontal arrow.

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