Bi-directional text

Bi-directional text is text containing text in both text directionalities, both right-to-left (RTL or dextrosinistral) and left-to-right (LTR or sinistrodextral). It generally involves text containing different types of alphabets, but may also refer to boustrophedon, which is changing text directionality in each row.

Some writing systems of the world, including the Arabic and Hebrew scripts or derived systems such as the Persian, Urdu, and Yiddish scripts, are written in a form known as right-to-left (RTL), in which writing begins at the right-hand side of a page and concludes at the left-hand side. This is different from the left-to-right (LTR) direction used by most languages in the world. When LTR text is mixed with RTL in the same paragraph, each type of text is written in its own direction, which is known as bi-directional text. This can get rather complex when multiple levels of quotation are used.

Many computer programs fail to display bi-directional text correctly. For example, the Hebrew name Sarah (שרה) is spelled: sin (ש) (which appears rightmost), then resh (ר), and finally heh (ה) (which should appear leftmost). (הרש)