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I edit for a firm that does a lot of ESL documents, so I am *guessing* this problem may have something to do with the multiple languages Word (2016/365) now tries to spellcheck for. I do not think I have any of the packages installed (I installed a Puerto Rican Spanish package once, and it messed a whole lot of other documents up, so I have actively avoided that since). However, a couple of times now, I've encountered documents that automatically want to RTL the comments I insert in a document. I can manually change it back with a ribbon button every single time, but I've been unable to find a way to set LTR back to my default, even using the instructions the firm gave me (which appear to be for Word 2010 or older).
On top of that, in working on my *own* manuscripts, I keep accidentally activating RTL in trying to insert a non-breaking space before an ellipsis (Ctrl+Shift+Space). Now and then, I hit Ctrl+Shift and then have to release the keys to adjust what's highlighted, and my entire paragraph flips RTL. It has taken me days to figure out what was going on here, and when I attempted to remap the keyboard shortcuts, it turns out this is NOT a mapped key sequence, it's just some feature I cannot seem to deactivate.
An extremely frustrating feature, and one that cost me a lot of extra time on a document I edited this week.
I mapped a key sequence to LTR so I can easily undo it and save myself a lot of extra mousing to click a ribbon button for *every*single*comment in another 5,000 word document, but I would really, really love to know if there is a way to completely shut it off AND how to set defaults in Word 2016 for the Comment Text style so that each new comment is appropriately LTR and not RTL.
Can anyone please help?
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Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
Answer accepted by question author
By default, the Comment Text style that is used for comments is based on the Normal Style and will inherit the RTL\LTR attribute that is set in that Style - in fact, it cannot be set\altered in the Comment Style, so check the paragraph formatting of the Normal Style,
Nevermind. I fixed that as well now. Despite not *installing* the Persian (Iran) language package from that last editing task, it was still available and somehow active in my Language settings. (Even said 'not installed'!) Highlighted it, clicked REMOVE, restarted Word, and this buggery kink is gone.
Seems I will need to go in and remove stuff like that frequently from now on. Thanks for the help.
AHA! Ok. So that sorted one of the problems, then...while Normal was LTR, the Comment Text (despite how many times I had fiddled with it) still indicated RTL and Complex Persian (Iran). I was able to go to one of the comments I'd already fixed, and with the Style menu open, click the down arrow by Comment Text and say "update text to match selection"...BOOM, new comment came up automatically LTR. Perfect--thank you. Will let my firm know how to do that on 2016 now.
However, with my own document, is there anyway to turn OFF the "Shift+Ctrl" switch for RTL??