Paragraph “Left to Right” and “Right to Left” gr

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Whenever I go into one of my styles to change the “Left to right” text direction in the paragraph dialogue, it is grayed out. I have to change the individual paragraph settings for each paragraph in the style; I cannot make a global change. Is there a way around this so that I could change the text direction for the entire style?

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Is the style a Paragraph Style ?
When I try this I can do what you want. This is what the Modify Style dialogue looks like, and the alignment option is available.

Can you post a screen shot , or a sample document.

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Actually, teh dialogue I’m havign trouble with is under Styles | Modify, then Format | Paragraphs, under text direction, Right to Left and Left to Rigth are grayed out for every style except for Normal.

I think I figured out how to get my style “Arabic” to go right to left. I think the text direction of all of the text is based on Normal; if Normal is left to right, then so will all of the other styles, and that can’t change. So first I tried to make the change in Normal to right to left text direction and then I created teh new style Arabic, whcih was based on Normal’s newly modified right to left default. But once I changed Normal back to left ot right, Arabic also changed.

So then I took a paragraph that was set to Arabic and went through Format | Paragraph without messing with the Style, and then I changed the text direction (there, unlike in the Style modify dialogue, it’s not grayed out). Then I ended up with a style called Arabic + right to left. I went ahead and set my ctrl + Shift + A shortcut to that new style, and deleted the Arabic style, and then saved ARabic + right to left as a new quick Style whose name was Arabic.

By the way, is there a way in Word 2007 to figure out what style a given selection is? In Word 2003, there was a window up top next to the font that showed the Style. In Word 2007, there is also a window, but there are only 3 styles shown at a time and the style where my cursor is is not always one of the there displayed, nor is it one of the 25 displayed when I click to expand the Styles window, or is it one of the Styles displayed on the side window when I click Format / Styles to open up the dialogue box.

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By the way, is there a way in Word 2007 to figure out what style a given selection is? In Word 2003, there was a window up top next to the font that showed the Style.

You could try the technique in this article to show the old drop-down on the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT): How to reinstate the Styles combo box in Microsoft Word 2007 and Word 2010 | ShaunaKelly.com. Does that help?

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Hi jmt
Re:

Actually, teh dialogue I’m havign trouble with
…
I created teh new style Arabic, whcih was
…
I created teh new style Arabic, whcih

Yes, I see you’re definitely having some

Left to Rigth

issues.

Re:

is there a way in Word 2007 to figure out what style a given selection is?

Clicking on the small down arrow at the bottom-right of the Style tab on the Home Ribbon opens up the Styles list. Scrolling the Styles pane up/down should show which Style the selection is using. If it doesn’t, clicking on the ‘Options’ link there allows you to control the range of Styles that are displayed.

Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

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Macropod: I tried that last week, and even though I had opted for all of my styles to be displayed, my ARabic style wasn’t showing up anywhere on the Style pane.

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Hi jmt,

Are you sure the Arabic Style exists in the documenbt, and not just some arabic text?

Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

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Hi jmt,

I’ve just had the opportunity to download and open the document from your other thread. Using Word 2007, configured to show all Styles, I can indeed see one named ‘Arabic’ – it appears just above one named ‘asdfgh’ and another named ‘asdgvhj!

Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

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