Word start from right to left

If you regularly use Microsoft Word with a language that reads from right-to-left, you may find that the right-to-left format remains when you try to write in English. This is because the text direction defaults to right-to-left in versions of Microsoft Word sold in some regions.

Luckily, if you’re using a Windows computer, changing the direction of text is easy via the “left-to-right” command. Only the most recent versions of Word for Mac support this feature, so if you encounter this problem, the best option is to copy and paste the text into a new document.

Customizing the Quick Access Toolbar

The first thing you need to do is add the “left-to-right” command to the Quick Access Toolbar. To do this, click the arrow next to the “Redo” button and choose “More Commands” from the dropdown list.

On the next screen, you have the option to choose commands to add to the toolbar. If you can’t see the “left-to-right” command, chose “All Commands” from the top menu.

Next, scroll down and choose “Left-to-Right Text Direction.” The name of the command here may depend on the version of Word you’re using. In Word 2010, this command is called “Ltr run,” while Word 2003 lists it as “Ltr para.”

Now the button will be displayed on the toolbar (you can use a similar process to add it to the main ribbon if you right click on the ribbon and select “Customize the Ribbon”).

Now select the text that is showing right-to-left, click the button, and it should switch to left-to-right. Repeat this last step anywhere in your document, including footnotes and comment boxes, where the text direction displays from right-to-left.

It’s also worth noting that you can select the “Right-to-Left Text Direction” command using the same method. This is useful if you need to switch back to the original format at any point.

Formatting from Proofed

If you would like to get your paper formatted perfectly, send it to the professionals at Proofed!

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.

Release Date: November 7, 2018
Category: Writing Tools
Author: Amanda W., Ph.D.

Many versions of Word allow users to enter text in right-to-left format to accommodate other languages.
Most of these change the formatting to left-to-right text direction when users select English for the text language.
However, a few versions have bugs in this process and the formatting remains right to left, such as the Arabic versions of Word.
If you receive a document originally written in one of these versions, the cursor, text direction, and/or punctuation will behave abnormally.

Here, we describe 1) how to fix this problem in a selected segment of text and 2) how to set all new comments to run in the correct direction.
The information in this guide was compiled from instructions for the 2010, 2013, and 2016 versions of Word, so these instructions should be accurate for those versions, but might not work with older versions.

Changing right-to-left to left-to-right formatting

To do this, we will add two buttons to our Quick Toolbar.
These will stay in Word as long as it is installed on your computer, so you can use them whenever you encounter this problem.

1. In the Quick Access Toolbar at the top left of the screen (where the save and undo buttons are), click the arrow at the right side and select “More Commands”.
2. Under «Choose commands from:» select «All Commands.»
3. Find «Left-to-Right Text Direction» in the alphabetical list and click «Add>>».
4. Find «Ltr Run» and click «Add>>».
5. Click «OK» to close the window.
6. You should now have two new buttons in the Quick Access toolbar at the top left of your screen: the Left-to-Right Text Direction button, which looks like an arrow and a paragraph symbol, and the Ltr Run button, which looks like an open, gray, or green circle depending on your version of Word.
7. Select the text that needs to be fixed, or select all text in the document by pressing Ctrl-A.
8. Click both the Left-to-Right Text Direction and Ltr Run buttons (it doesn’t matter which you click first).

Text should now run left to right as we expect in English writing.
If the text is suddenly right justified, meaning that it all lines up along the right margin, don’t worry – that means the author of the original document was trying to get around the bug and make the text look normal.
Just select the text and click “Left Align” in the “Paragraph” section under the “Home” tab.

Setting comments to default to left-to-right text

If you are providing feedback on this document, you will likely need to add comments to the document.
Although the directions above are effective in comments, it can get very annoying to click your two Quick Access buttons every time you need to write a new comment.
Luckily, we can set Word to use the correct formatting for all future comments.

1. If there are no comments, write one and fix it using the directions above.
2. In a properly formatted comment, click somewhere in the comment text that doesn’t have any special formatting (no italic, bold, superscript, etc.).
3. Go to «Home» tab and click the tiny arrow in the bottom right corner of the “Styles” section.
4. Click “Options…”
5. Change “Select how list is sorted:” to “Alphabetical”.
6. Change «Select styles to show:» to «All styles.»
7. Find «Comment Text» in the list and click it if it’s not already selected.
   • If there are no styles in the list and it’s just a blank white box, click the «Style Inspector» button at the bottom (the one in the middle with a magnifying glass), and the first item in the smaller box that pops up should be “Comment Text.” You’ll follow the next steps within that box.
   • If clicking “Comment Text” changes the comment back to right-to-left formatting, select all the text in that comment and click your two new Quick Access buttons again.
8. Hover your mouse over «Comment Text» and click the drop-down arrow that appears.
9. Click «Update Comment Text to Match Selection.»
10. Close all open style boxes.

Try adding new comments; the text should run left to right.
This will save a bit of time and a lot of frustration.
It will need to be done for each document in which you encounter this issue, but once you’ve done it, that style information should stay with the document even if you send it to someone else.

Keywords: Microsoft Word, Microsoft Office, Text Direction, Editing, Comments

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Last updated: March 13, 2019

Microsoft Word has a lot of possible applications aside from simple document creation. For example, you might use it to create a newsletter or flyer, which will inspire you to modify your text in ways that typical document editing may not require.

One such modification is the option to change the direction in which your text is oriented. This is not possible in the main document body, but you can use text boxes to position and rotate text as needed. Our guide below will show you how to create and populate a text box, then use a couple of different options to rotate the text contained within the box.

Change Text Direction in Word – Quick Summary

1. Click Insert at the top of the window.
2. Click the Text Box button and choose a text box to insert.
3. Add your text to the text box.
4. Click the Drawing Tools Format tab.
5. Select the Text Direction button, then choose the desired option.

For additional information, including pictures for these steps, continue to the section below.

If you need to move your content to the center of the page, then our guide on how to center text in Word can help you out.

The steps below will show you how to create a text box, add text to it, then change the direction of that text. Your text can be either horizontal (default), it can be rotated by 90 degrees, or it can be rotated by 270 degrees.

1. Open your document in Microsoft Word 2013.

1. Click the Insert tab at the top of the window.

1. Click the Text Box button in the Text section of the ribbon, then either select one of the default text box options, or click the Draw Text Box button to insert a custom one.

1. Type the desired text into the text box.

1. Confirm that the Format tab under Drawing Tools is selected, then click the Text Direction button and choose the preferred direction of the text.

If you would like the direction of your text to be different than one of the default options, you can also click the rotation handle on the text box and drag it until your text is situated correctly.

Now that you know how to change the direction of text in Microsoft Word you will be able to use it when you are working on a document that needs upside down or tilted text.

If you’ve noticed Word deleting text as you type, then you can read our why does typing delete letters guide and change a setting to fix it.

How to Add the Right-to-left Text Direction Button in Word

If you instead need to switch from a left-to-right to a right-to-left option when entering text into the document body, then there are some actions you need to take first.

Step 1: Click the File tab at the top-left of the window.

Step 2: Click the Options button in the left column.

Step 3: Choose the Language tab.

Step 4: Click the Add additional editing languages dropdown menu, choose a right-to-left language, then click the Add button.

Step 5: Click OK at the bottom of the window. Note that you will need to restart Word for this change to take effect.

Step 6: Click the Right-to-left Text Direction button in the Paragraph section of the Home tab.

Is there text in your document that you do not want to be visible, but you aren’t ready to delete it? Learn how to hide text in Microsoft Word 2013 and give yourself a new option for formatting your text.

Обработка слов слева направо / справа налево (LTR / RTL) работает на двух уровнях: уровень абзаца , которым можно управлять, щелкая правой кнопкой мыши по абзацу и выбирая соответствующее направление (справа налево, или слева направо); и уровень запуска .

Рассмотрим следующую последовательность букв:

ABCD

Это пример запуска LTR. Если мы используем язык RTL, даже если последовательность букв одного и того же порядка, текст должен отображаться в обратном порядке при запуске RTL.

Actual order: ABCD
Visual order: DCBA

Когда мы добавляем нетуральные символы — символы, у которых нет правил относительно того, отображаются ли они как LTR или RTL — направление бега не может быть определено на основе самих символов; мы должны четко определить направление пробега:

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

При наборе текста вам не нужно устанавливать направление бега; Word устанавливает направление выполнения данного нейтрального символа в зависимости от направления текущего языка, на котором вы печатаете.

В более старых версиях Word (<= 2003) я не нашел способа сделать это через пользовательский интерфейс, только через редактор VBA.

1. Выберите текст, который вы хотите изменить
2. Нажмите ALT+F11, чтобы открыть среду программирования VBA.
3. Нажмите на панель « Немедленно» ; или, если он не виден, нажмите CTRL+G
4. Тип Selection.LtrRun и нажмите ENTER

Примечание. Чтобы установить прогон RTL, введите « Selection.RtlRun

В Word 2010 вы можете настроить ленту, добавив команды LtrRun и RtlRun для установки направления запуска LTR/RTL.

Fans of Knowadays’ blog (we know you’re out there) will know that we try to make our posts fun and entertaining. But even fun-packed jobs like proofreading have their boring, technical bits. And more often than not, these bits are annoyingly important.

Take, for example, the issue of correcting right-to-left text in Microsoft Word.

Script Defaults

Sometimes, especially when working on documents from international clients, you may find that seemingly right-justified text won’t move when you change the alignment. This is because the issue is not about justification. Instead, it’s because some scripts (Arabic or Hebrew, for instance) read right-to-left rather than left-to-right.

This may affect the whole document or just parts of it (most commonly, the comments and footnotes). While this is not always a huge issue for proofreading, it can make the job more difficult. The cursor will appear at the end of the line, for example, and text will appear to emerge from the wrong side of the page. So how do you fix this?

Bi-Directional Languages

You may already have bi-directional languages installed on your version of Microsoft Word. If so, the left-to-right and right-to-left text direction buttons should be visible on the Home tab.

Text direction buttons on the Home tab

To change the text direction in this case, simply click the button required.

Adding Buttons in Word for Windows and Word for Mac 2016

If you don’t have the buttons above, you may have to add them yourself. To do this in Word for Windows or Word for Mac 2016:

1. Click the down arrow on the Quick Access Toolbar (at the top of the window) and select More Commands to open a new window.

More commands on the quick access toolbar

2. In the new window, under Choose commands from, select All Commands.

All commands

3. Find Left-to-Right Text Direction and click Add.

Left-to-right text direction

4. Do the same for Right-to-Left Text Direction and click OK.

OK!

These commands will then be added to the Quick Access Toolbar.

Older Versions of Word for Mac

Older versions of Word for Mac don’t support bi-directional text, so adding buttons is not an option. However, if comments are reading right-to-left, you can modify the Comment Text style. You can do this by changing the Style Based On setting from Normal to Default.

This should reset the text direction to left-to-right.

Changing text direction in comments in older versions of Word for Mac

Becoming A Proofreader

If you’d like to learn more about formatting in Microsoft Word, our Becoming A Proofreader course covers this and lots of other topics. You can even sign up for a free trial!