Ana
As Steve and Teus wrote, you need the Middle Eastern edition to get full
right-to-left support. But if you're willing to go the cheap route (and
you've got someone who reads Arabic to proofread for you), you can use a
script to reverse the character order of each line. Olav Kvern posted this a
while back:
----------------------------------------------
Here's a quick-and-dirty JavaScript that will reverse the order of the
characters on each line in the selected story.
//ReverseCharacters.js
//An InDesign CS JavaScript
//
//Reverses the order of the characters in each line of text in the selected
story.
//
var myStory;
if(app.documents.length != 0){
if(app.activeDocument.stories.length != 0){
switch(app.selection[0].constructor.name){
case "TextFrame":
case "Text":
case "InsertionPoint":
myStory = app.selection[0].parentStory;
myReverseCharacters(myStory);
break;
}
}
}
function myReverseCharacters(myStory){
var myLine, myTextStyleRange;
for(var myCounter = myStory.lines.length-1; myCounter >= 0; myCounter --){
myLine = myStory.lines.item(myCounter);
if((myLine.characters.item(-1).contents.charAt(0) == "\r")&&(myLine.length >
1)){
myLine = myLine.characters.itemByRange(0, -2);
}
if(myLine.length > 1){
myLine.contents = myReverseString(myLine.contents);
}
}
}
function myReverseString(myString){
var myReversedString = "";
for (var myCharacterCounter = myString.length-1; myCharacterCounter >=0;
myCharacterCounter --){
myReversedString += myString.charAt(myCharacterCounter);
}
return myReversedString;
}
To use this script, copy it out of the message and into a text editor
(Notepad works). Save the file as plain text with the file extension .js to
the Scripts folder inside the Presets folder inside your InDesign folder (if
the Scripts folder does not already exist, create it). In InDesign, display
the Scripts palette. You should see the script you just saved. Select a text
frame and run the script. InDesign should reverse the order of the
characters in each line of the story containing the text frame.
This script doesn't know about text having multiple formats in a line--it'll
mess those up. But I thought it would demonstrate that you could solve your
problem with scripting.
(Also Note: Some Asian languages are--or can be--read right-to-left.)
Thanks,
Ole