How to write right to left in Word, LibreOffice and Google Docs

Right to left is not the same as right aligned

Aligning a paragraph to the right only moves the lines to the right margin. The paragraph still thinks it reads from the left, so a full stop typed at the end of an Arabic sentence appears at the left of the line, and a number or an English word in the middle can push the words around it out of order.

Setting the paragraph’s direction to right to left fixes this. The paragraph starts at the right margin, punctuation lands where the reader expects it, lists number on the right, and indents mirror. Every word processor below has a separate control for this, apart from alignment.

In Microsoft Word

First add the language under File → Options → Language, as an editing language, and add its keyboard in Windows. Word then shows the Right-to-Left Text Direction and Left-to-Right Text Direction buttons in Home → Paragraph.

Ctrl+Right Shift makes the paragraph at the caret right to left, and Ctrl+Left Shift turns it back. A table has its own direction, under Table Properties, which puts the first column on the right. In Excel the same idea is Page Layout → Sheet Right-to-Left, which puts column A on the right of the sheet.

In LibreOffice

Turn on Complex text layout under Tools → Options → Language Settings → Languages and choose the language beside it. Writer then shows Left-to-Right and Right-to-Left buttons on the Formatting toolbar, and Format → Text has the same commands. Calc can lay a sheet out right to left from Sheet → Right-To-Left.

In Google Docs

Set the document’s language to a right-to-left one under File → Language. The toolbar then shows right-to-left and left-to-right paragraph buttons. If they still do not appear, check that a right-to-left language is chosen for the document and reload it.

Fonts and mixed text

• Urdu is usually written in Nastaliq, which slopes and stacks letters in a way general Arabic fonts do not. Use a Nastaliq font such as Noto Nastaliq Urdu or Jameel Noori Nastaleeq for body text, and check that whoever opens the file has it too, or embed it.
• A line that mixes scripts, such as an Arabic sentence with an English product name and a price, is laid out by the Unicode bidirectional rules. If a short run of English ends up in the wrong place, the paragraph direction is usually wrong rather than the text.
• Numbers stay left to right inside a right-to-left paragraph. That is correct, so do not type them reversed.