Right-to-left localization fails in predictable ways. The same seven problems show up in Arabic course projects again and again, and most of them are invisible until someone who reads the script opens the course. Here they are, with the fix for each.
1. The layout never mirrors
The most common failure: Arabic text is dropped into a page whose direction is still left-to-right. Text ends up left-aligned, paragraphs flow the wrong way, and the page reads like a mirror image of itself. The fix is structural, not cosmetic — the document direction must actually be set to RTL in the exported HTML, so alignment, flow, and indentation follow automatically. Right-aligning LTR text by hand is not RTL support.
2. Punctuation wanders to the wrong end of the line
Periods, commas, and question marks are direction-neutral characters, so a rendering engine places them according to the surrounding direction context. When that context is wrong, a full stop detaches from its sentence and floats to the far end of the line. If you see stray punctuation at line edges in an Arabic review, the document direction is wrong — fix that, not the punctuation.
3. Mixed-direction sentences scramble
Real course content mixes directions constantly: an Arabic sentence containing a product name, an acronym like LMS, or an English technical term. Without correct direction handling, the words around those Latin runs visually reorder into nonsense. Correct output keeps English terms as left-to-right islands positioned where the Arabic sentence needs them. Test with sentences that mix scripts — they fail first.
4. Numbers and dates reorder
Digit runs inside bidirectional text are notorious for visually reordering — a phone number or version string can display its groups in the wrong sequence. Verify every figure survived translation byte-for-byte. This is tedious by hand, which is why the Lokalizeit fidelity score includes a dedicated number-and-link integrity check that flags any segment where a figure changed.
5. Brackets flip — or fail to
Parentheses and brackets are mirrored characters: an opening bracket in RTL context should render as its visual mirror. In broken output, learners see what looks like )this( around Arabic phrases. Like punctuation drift, this is a symptom of wrong direction context, and the cure is the same: real document-level RTL, then a native-reader spot check of bracketed text.
6. Fonts and text expansion break the design
Arabic script needs fonts that actually contain Arabic glyphs — a missing glyph renders as an empty box, and a fallback font can look jarringly different from the design. Arabic also runs taller than Latin text and translations change length, so tight text boxes clip or overflow. Check fonts early, and use length-anomaly warnings (the fidelity report flags them) to find the slides most at risk.
7. Navigation still points the wrong way
A course can read right-to-left while its player still behaves left-to-right: next buttons on the right, progress bars filling leftward, arrows implying the wrong direction. Some of this lives in the player rather than the content, so review it explicitly. The same goes for artwork — a timeline drawn left-to-right stays as designed, and only a designer can mirror it. Inventory direction-sensitive graphics before launch, not after.
The common thread
Five of these seven problems trace back to one root cause: the document direction was never truly set to right-to-left, so the rendering engine applied left-to-right rules to right-to-left text. Get the direction right structurally and punctuation, brackets, and mixed-language ordering largely take care of themselves. That is the approach behind Lokalizeit's Arabic and RTL support— and it applies whether you are translating a SCORM course from Storyline or Rise 360, or a standalone document. The remaining two — fonts and direction-sensitive artwork — need human eyes, which is why every Arabic export ships with an RTL advisory beside its fidelity score.
Frequently asked questions
- Is right-aligning my text enough to support Arabic?
- No. Alignment is one visible symptom of direction, not direction itself. Punctuation placement, bracket mirroring, and mixed-language ordering all depend on the document direction being genuinely RTL — right-aligned LTR text gets all three wrong.
- Who should review Arabic output before launch?
- Someone who reads Arabic. Most RTL failures — wandering punctuation, scrambled mixed-direction runs — are invisible to reviewers who do not read the script, which is exactly why broken RTL output ships so often.
- Does Lokalizeit handle these problems automatically?
- The structural ones, yes: document direction is set to RTL in Arabic exports, English terms are preserved as LTR islands, and the fidelity score checks numbers, links, and length anomalies. Direction-sensitive artwork and player chrome still deserve a human pass, and the RTL advisory reminds you of that.
- Which RTL languages does Lokalizeit support?
- Arabic is the RTL target language today, among 13 target languages overall. Hebrew, Persian, and Urdu are not offered yet.