How to Set Up InDesign for Arabic and Hebrew (RTL Guide)
Most InDesign workflows assume left-to-right. Text flows left. Frames grow left. Page one is on the left. Everything about the default setup points the wrong direction for Arabic and Hebrew — and if you don't know where to look, a file that seems fine in English will fall apart completely once the RTL translation lands.
This article walks through every setting that matters: which version of InDesign to use, how to configure a document from scratch for RTL, how paragraph and character styles behave differently, and what to check when a translated file comes back broken. It covers Arabic and Hebrew specifically, but the same principles apply to Farsi, Urdu, and other RTL scripts.
Agencies and project managers sending or receiving files for Arabic or Hebrew translation. You don't need to read Arabic — you need to know which settings to change and what to check.
First: You Need the Right Version of InDesign
This matters more than most people realise. Standard InDesign (any version) handles European languages. Right-to-left script support — proper Arabic shaping, Hebrew cursor behaviour, digit directionality, diacritic placement — requires either InDesign ME (Middle East edition, historically sold separately) or InDesign CC 2018 or later, which folded ME features into the main release.
InDesign Standard (pre-2018)
No native RTL support. Arabic letters won't connect. Hebrew will display but cursor and alignment behaviour is unreliable. Do not use for production RTL work.
InDesign CC 2018+ / InDesign ME
Full RTL support: Arabic letter joining, Kashida, digit directionality, paragraph direction toggle, right-bound document spine. Required for all production RTL files.
If your studio is running a subscription plan, you almost certainly have a version that supports RTL. The question is whether the paragraph composer and text direction controls are being used correctly — which is where most errors actually happen.
What's Different About an RTL Script?
Before changing any settings, it helps to understand what InDesign actually has to do differently for Arabic and Hebrew compared to Latin.
Hebrew is structurally simpler for InDesign because letters don't connect. Arabic requires the Arabic composer — InDesign's built-in shaping engine that handles letter joining, ligatures, and contextual forms. Without it, Arabic looks like disconnected individual glyphs, which is immediately obvious and unfixable without recomposing the text.
Setting Up a New Document for RTL
The document direction is set at creation. It is not a text-level setting — it controls the spine of the document, which side is the "front", and the default direction of new text frames.
New document setup — RTL
- Open
File → New → Document. - In the Bleed and Slug section, find Binding. Set it to
Right(this places the spine on the right, which is correct for Arabic and Hebrew books and multi-page documents). - Under Intent, select Print or Web as normal — this setting is separate from binding direction.
- Click Create. Pages will now be ordered right-to-left in the Pages panel.
- Open
Type → Paragraph(or the Paragraph panel). Confirm the Paragraph Direction button shows RTL (the icon shows lines running right). This is now the default for the document.
If a document was created LTR and needs to become RTL, the cleanest fix is to create a new RTL document and copy all content into it. Trying to patch the binding direction on an existing file causes persistent problems with frame anchoring and text thread direction.
Paragraph Direction: The Setting That Controls Everything
Every paragraph in InDesign has a direction: left-to-right or right-to-left. This is not the same as text alignment. Direction controls:
- Which end the cursor starts at when you click into a text frame
- Where punctuation lands (a full stop in Arabic text belongs at the left end of the line)
- How mixed content (Arabic + numerals, Arabic + Latin brand names) is resolved
- Which side the first bullet or number appears on in a list
The toggle is in the Paragraph panel — two small icons next to the alignment buttons. One shows lines pushed right (LTR), one shows lines pushed left (RTL). For Arabic and Hebrew body text, this must be set to RTL.
| Setting | Where to find it | Correct value for Arabic/Hebrew |
|---|---|---|
| Paragraph Direction | Paragraph panel, right-side icons | Right to Left |
| Text Composer | Paragraph panel menu → Composer | Adobe Arabic Paragraph Composer (Arabic/Farsi/Urdu) orAdobe World-Ready Paragraph Composer (Hebrew) |
| Justification | Paragraph panel → Justify | For Arabic: Justify with Last Line Aligned Right. For Hebrew: Justify with Last Line Aligned Right. |
| Text Frame Direction | Object → Text Frame Options → General | Right to Left |
| Digit Type | Character panel → OpenType Features → Digits | Arabic/Farsi: Arabic-Indic or Default (depends on client). Hebrew: Default (uses Western digits). |
If Paragraph Direction and Composer are set in a style, they apply automatically every time that style is used. This is the only reliable way to handle RTL at scale — especially in translated files where styles are applied by the translation tool.
The Composer: What It Does and Why It Matters for Arabic
The composer is InDesign's line-breaking and shaping engine. For Latin text, the Adobe Paragraph Composer or Single-Line Composer both work fine. For Arabic, you must use the Adobe Arabic Paragraph Composer.
Without it:
- Arabic letters do not connect — you get isolated forms instead of joined words
- Ligatures like lam-alef (لا) do not form
- Kashida (tatweel) justification is not available
- Diacritics (short vowel marks) position incorrectly
For Hebrew, the Adobe World-Ready Paragraph Composer handles the bidirectional algorithm correctly and manages mixed Hebrew/Latin text. Hebrew letters don't join, so shaping complexity is lower — but the World-Ready composer is still necessary for correct cursor behaviour and punctuation placement.
Select a line of Arabic text and look at it. If the letters appear disconnected — individual shapes not joined into words — the wrong composer is active. Switching to the Arabic Paragraph Composer immediately recomposes the text correctly.
Fonts for RTL: What Works, What Doesn't
Not every font that claims to support Arabic actually does so at a production level. The minimum requirement for print work is:
- Full Unicode coverage for the target script
- All four positional forms: initial, medial, final, isolated
- Correct lam-alef ligature
- OpenType features for Kashida and mark positioning
Reliable choices for Arabic: Adobe Arabic (ships with Creative Cloud), Noto Naskh Arabic (free, Google), Lateef, Scheherazade New (SIL, free), Sakkal Majalla. For body text at small sizes, Adobe Arabic and Noto Naskh Arabic are the safest bets.
For Hebrew: Adobe Hebrew (ships with Creative Cloud), Noto Sans Hebrew, David CLM, Frank Ruehl CLM. Adobe Hebrew is the go-to for Latin-paired layouts because its weight and x-height are designed to sit alongside common European typefaces.
This sounds obvious, but it happens constantly when a client sends a brand font that only covers Latin. A Latin font applied to Arabic text shows boxes or question marks — it does not "partially work". If the brand has no Arabic variant, the translator or DTP team needs to select a compatible substitute before work begins.
Handling Mixed LTR/RTL Content in the Same Frame
This is where most production problems occur. A typical Arabic layout will include: brand names in Latin, product codes, URLs, phone numbers, prices, and sometimes English phrases — all mixed into paragraphs set RTL.
InDesign applies the Unicode bidirectional (Bidi) algorithm automatically for this. The paragraph direction determines the base direction; any Latin sequences within that paragraph are automatically placed left-to-right within their run. You generally do not need to manually force this.
Where it breaks:
- Numbers followed by units: "١٠ kg" — the unit may jump to the wrong side if the digit type and surrounding direction aren't consistent
- Punctuation at the boundary: parentheses, quotation marks, and brackets are direction-neutral in Unicode; InDesign uses context to place them, and that context can be wrong in complex mixed strings
- All-Latin runs inside RTL paragraphs: a URL, a model number, or a long product name may be treated as an LTR override — visually it reads left-to-right within the RTL line, which is correct, but the cursor behaviour can confuse non-Arabic speakers editing the file
If a specific short sequence is displaying in the wrong direction, select it and apply Character Direction: Left to Right (in the Character panel, right-side icons). Use this sparingly — it is a manual fix, not a systemic solution, and it breaks on export to translation CAT tools.
What a Translated File Looks Like When RTL Settings Are Wrong
When a translator or agency returns a translated file and the RTL configuration is wrong, you will see one or more of these:
| Symptom | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Arabic letters appear disconnected | Wrong composer (Standard instead of Arabic) | Select all text, switch composer to Adobe Arabic Paragraph Composer |
| Text runs left-to-right inside the frame | Paragraph direction set to LTR | Select all paragraphs, set Paragraph Direction to RTL |
| Text frame appears empty or shows pink | Overset text from expansion (Arabic text can be longer than source) | Enlarge frame or reduce type size; see overset text article |
| Punctuation at wrong end of line | Paragraph direction LTR with RTL text content | Correct paragraph direction; recheck composer |
| Numbers appear right-to-left as strings | Eastern Arabic digits set without direction context | Check Digit Type setting; confirm paragraph direction is RTL |
| Document opens with spine on wrong side | Document created as LTR, pasted RTL content | Rebuild document in RTL; paste content from scratch |
Preparing a File for RTL Translation: The Agency Checklist
If you are sending an existing LTR file for Arabic or Hebrew translation, the DTP team on the translation side will need to do significant rework. You can reduce that rework — and the cost — by preparing the source file correctly.
Pre-translation checklist — RTL
Arabic text is usually 10–30% shorter than English source text, not longer. This means some frames will have more space after translation, not less — which creates its own layout problem if the design assumes text fills the container. Hebrew tends to be roughly equivalent in length to English. Plan for both directions.
The Short Version
Right-to-left layout in InDesign is not complicated if you know which settings to change. The common mistakes are: using a version of InDesign that predates RTL support, not setting paragraph direction to RTL, using the wrong composer for Arabic, and applying Latin-only fonts. None of these are hard to fix once you know where to look.
The bigger issue is that RTL documents should be built RTL from the start — the document binding direction cannot be reliably changed after creation, and retrofitting an LTR document for RTL content always costs more than building correctly from scratch.
If you are sending files to a translation vendor for Arabic or Hebrew, send an IDML, provide the font, specify the digit format, and confirm the binding direction requirement upfront. That brief takes five minutes and saves everyone three rounds of revision.
Further Reading
Working on an Arabic or Hebrew layout?
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