right to left - How to switch writing direction (LTR/RTL) in Word 2007?

microsoft-word-2007 right-to-left

16
2014-02

I Z

I received a word document that was probably created on a machine with some sort of right-to-left locale (e.g. Middle East). All text is in English but editing it is a pain. However, I can't figure out how I can switch the direction to left-to-right in Word 2007. The directions here are not helping since I can't find the "Views" button or tab that I am supposed to click as described under "Set right-to-left text writing". So how do I switch? Thanks!

Answers

Karan

Add and enable the alternate language under Start / Programs / Microsoft Office / Microsoft Office Tools / 2007 Microsoft Office system Language Settings
Click the round Office button:
Click Word Options:
Click Customize:
In the Choose commands from drop-down menu, select Home Tab instead of Popular Commands
Find and highlight Left-to-Right Direction, then click the Add button to move it to the Customize Quick Access Toolbar section
Add the Right-to-Left Direction command to the QAT as well
Now in the QAT you will see the RTL () and LTR () buttons, which you can use as required

Zev Spitz

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 -- 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, Word manages setting the run direction automatically 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.

Select the text you want to change
Press ALT+F11
Click on the Immediate pane
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.

Related Answers

Jarvis

There's a problematic section in your Word file that's causing this.

The part of your document with the most many errors in the Document Map, is the one. Extract this to another file. Then copy & paste the remaining contents to a new document and it should be clean :)

Rick in NYC

If you have Table of Contents or Table of Figures and you update the entire table, the Document Map MUST BE OPEN when you update to maintain the same document map. If the Document Map button is not clicked and you cannot see the Document map, then when you update a table it will create a new document map and screw it up.

The same thing happens if the Word Application is closed while the Document Map is open. When Word launches the next time, it thinks it is supposed to create a Document Map for any file opened and screws it up. Instead, close the document map BEFORE CLOSING Word. Then when Word opens next time, it doesn't try to create the Document Map. When you click the Document Map box it will use the existing Document Map you expect.

Also do not save a document with a bad document map or it is the new document map.

gerleim

I solved this problem with the method found at http://www.officekb.com/Uwe/Forum.aspx/word-docmanagement/102550/Suddenly-captions-and-other-text-in-document-map-and

I couldn't find any other working workaround, and I didn't wanted to password protect just to stop auto-format, and didn't wanted to copy all the parts of the document into a new one etc.

The trick is to create and apply an Outline Level 1 style to something which was Body Text before.

In my "corrupted" document with this behavior (always showing corrupted document map after reopening the document, no matter what formatting or other proposed trick), I saved a new style called "Title 2" (Title was the original, and was "body text" outline) and applied to the "Title" text "Table of Contents". After that I re-applied the style to every "corrupted" parts pressing Control-Q. Now the Document Map works OK.

Benjotron

I encountered many errors like this while tracking changes. The document map attempts to parse the changes instead of ignoring them and can result in errors. If you are tracking changes, try accepting all, or turning off tracking and deleting any changes to headers or heading numbers.

FrankieVC

In MS Word 2007, open the document, press CTRL + A (to select the entire document), right-click and choose Paragraph. On the Paragraph dialog box Indents and Spacing tab, click the Outline Level down arrow, choose Body Text, and click OK. (This will not change your heading levels.)

"Save As" the document to a Rich Text File (.rtf) then save it back as an MS Word docx. This has fixed my problem. Hope it helps you!

Frankie

K.T.

I have had the same problem. Here is my solution (which might be similar in principal to the two described above): Apply the style Heading 1 to the very first line of your document. After this Word will no longer change your outline settings. At least it doesn't in my files.

Zatapatique

I solved this by selecting the faulty text and pressing Ctrl+Q (clear paragraph formatting).

user205815

Someone somewhere says that turning off all autoformatting doesn’t work.

Here is a solution involving password protection:

http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/document-map-word-2007-resets-body-text-document-map-answer

but the options he mentions do not appear in my Word for Mac 2011.

Someone else:

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/uk/innovateonoffice/thread/92fad1aa-17d0-46b2-b7b3-ec36269f5296

says that the problem only happens when the document is opened with the DM pane open, so you assign the close keystroke (cmd-W) to a script that closes the document map every time you close a document. But when I opened a document with the DM having been shut before, it still happens.

The solution I found (and I think you have to do it for each document that has this problem) is to set any style in the document, ideally one that you don’t use, to Outline Level 1 (level 9 did not work for me). Then create a first line to the document and apply that style to that line (making it the last line did not work for me). I add a second line reminding me not to remove or alter the first line.

This solution is based on the one recommended on this page:

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/microsoft.public.word.docmanagement/AXoznrJ8p_s

namely:

What I learned from countless websites on this subject is that when Word  does not find any styles with an attached outline level (except the heading  styles) it start to guess by itself. And it guesses wrong. So I created a single style that has an outline level attached. I chose the  style used for the table of contents. When reopening the document now, no  extra entries are visible, so word has stopped guessing.

Here is someone using and describing that solution- in a way I don’t understand:

The trick is to create and apply an Outline Level 1 style to something which was Body Text before. In my "corrupted" document with this behavior (always showing corrupted document map after reopening the document, no matter what formatting or other proposed trick), I saved a new style called "Title 2" (Title was the original, and was "body text" outline) and applied to the "Title" text "Table of Contents". After that I re-applied the style to every "corrupted" parts pressing Control-Q. Now the Document Map works OK.

Thanks to everyone for sharing your struggles!

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right to left - How to switch writing direction (LTR/RTL) in Word 2007?