Direction flipped, layout untouched
Text reads right to left but icons, forms and card order still follow the left-to-right original, creating a visibly broken experience.
LANGUAGES · ARABIC AND RTL
More than flipping the text direction
RTL means right-to-left, bidirectional layout. Arabic text reads right to left, but numbers, prices and embedded Latin terms still read left to right inside it. Genuine support mirrors the whole interface, navigation, icons, forms, card order, not just the sentence direction.
A single CSS rule that reverses text direction leaves icons pointing the wrong way and form fields misaligned with their labels. That is the gap between text that reads right to left and a page that actually works right to left.
THE RANGE OF PRACTICE
What text-only flipping looks like, and what fully mirrored looks like
Described by behaviour, not by a score.
Some components mirrored, others missed
Navigation mirrors correctly but a form field, an icon or a card layout somewhere still reads left to right by mistake.
Every component mirrors correctly
Text, icons, navigation and form order all mirror as a native Arabic reader expects, with numbers staying left to right inside the flow.
WHERE WE SIT
The same components, mirrored correctly
Not a separate design for the Arabic version.
Arabic pages use the same structure and components as the English site, mirrored rather than redesigned, so both directions are genuinely supported instead of maintained as two separate layouts. Numbers and prices stay left to right inside the right-to-left flow, matching how Arabic is actually written and read. Copy is written natively rather than translated, covered on the main languages page.
STRAIGHT ANSWERS
Questions about RTL layout
The ones that come up before anyone signs anything.
Right-to-left, bidirectional layout. Arabic text reads right to left, but numbers, prices and embedded Latin terms still read left to right inside it, which is why it is called bidirectional rather than simply reversed. The whole interface mirrors, not just the sentence direction: navigation, icons, form fields, the reading order of a card.
Flipping direction with a single style rule reverses text but leaves icons pointing the wrong way, numbers reading backward, and form fields misaligned with their labels. Genuine RTL support mirrors the logical structure of the page, not only the visual direction of the text.
The same structure and components, mirrored correctly rather than redesigned. Introducing separate components for the Arabic version would mean maintaining two different layouts instead of one that correctly supports both directions.
They stay left to right inside the right-to-left flow, which is standard practice and matches how Arabic is actually written and read. A price does not reverse its digit order just because the surrounding text direction has changed.
Building for an Arabic-speaking audience?
Tell us the markets and the platform. We will scope what genuine RTL support looks like for your specific build.