Bug in Arabic Word makes comments backward in English Word

Question

I teach ESL and whenever I get a paper from a student who is using an Arabic version of MS Word, whenever I leave comments in the file, they become backwards. There is no way around this other than copying it into Notepad and recopying it into a fresh Word document.

I have tried selecting all the text and changing the proofing language, I have tried removing formatting. Nothing words except pasting it into Notepad and then back into Word. Left and right alignment changes do nothing.

Here is an example:

You can see how the period will end up at the "beginning" of the sentence sometimes (here it is actually the middle, and the end is unpunctuated).

Is there any way around this or patch that I am unaware of?

Answer 1

Please note the following: there's a difference between paragraph direction and text alignment. You're trying to change the text alignment to the left, but this won't solve the problem. The solution is to make the paragraph left-to-right (LTR), but unfortunately you don't have this option because your Word doesn't support Arabic. Those who have Arabic-enabled Word can choose RTL paragraph direction in order to type Arabic, and LTR paragraph direction to type English.

Here's a workaround for your situation (based on Word 2010):

Click File > Options.

When the Word Options window opens, go to Quick Access Toolbar.

Under Choose commands from, choose All Commands.

Scroll down to Left-to-Right Text Direction, double click it to add it to the column to the right.

Click OK.

You'll notice that the Quick Access Toolbar has now a new button.

Now, when you insert a comment that turns to be RTL, click that button and it will make your comment LTR.

Answer 2

I was able to reproduce the issue only when I removed all traces of Arabic in the settings of my Windows 7 and Office 2010. Obviously Word retains a lot of its special language features in its documents. Based on that, I can suggest the following workaround:

You need to add another button to your Quick Access Toolbar. Follow the steps mentioned in my previous post to add a button called "Ltr Run". A new green circle will appear in your Quick Access Toolbar. Now, when you add a comment to a document created with Arabic Word:

a. Use the old LTR Text Direction button to make your comment start from the left.

b. While the pointer is inside the comment, press CTRL+A to select all. Then click the new Ltr Run button. This way Word will know that the text should run now LTR in the comment, not RTL as the way it was when the document was created.

You can use method b. to fix any previous backward comments.

Those who have Arabic support added to Office don't encounter this problem. If the problem persists, try to add Arabic to your Office languages (File > Options > Language). Keep English as the default. You don't have to add any Arabic keyboard or to have Arabic menus. The LTR Text Direction button will be enough (you'll have it then in the home tab close to a RTL Text Direction button).

Answer 3

For some reason, this does not always fix the problem, and lately, although I have added the Left-to-Right button, it does not help whether I turn it on or off, and my comments are still backwards.

Any idea why this is happening?

Answer 4

Here is another example. Again, sometimes it does this and sometimes it "allows" me to type words in the right order.

This is: "You should not make opinionated comments like this."

Without warning, it started typing it all backwards!

This only happens when I am making comments on a Word document that originated from an Arabic speaking student.

Answer 5

Hi,

Let us try changing the paragraph alignment to ‘Left to right’ and then verify the results. To do that, under the Home tab in the Paragraph section click on Align Left.

I hope this fixes the issue. If you still have issues, you may reply and we’ll be happy to help you.

Thank you