Format tables and sheets for bidirectional text

Numbers supports bidirectional text in cells, so within the same spreadsheet you can have some cells with text written from left to right (such as in English or Chinese) and others with text written from right to left (such as in Arabic or Hebrew). You can also reverse the direction of the table itself, or of a sheet and everything on it.

Note: To change the direction of cell text, a sheet, or an entire table, your device must be set up for input sources that use different text directions—for example, one keyboard for typing a right-to-left language, such as Hebrew, and another for typing a left-to-right language, such as English. If Numbers is open when you add a right-to-left keyboard, you need to restart Numbers before you’ll see the bidirectional controls. See Set up a keyboard or other input source for another language.

The default direction of text in cells is based on the current keyboard (selected in the Input menu).

Change text direction in cells

You can change the direction of text in selected cells.

  1. Select the cells.

  2. In the Format  sidebar, click the Text tab.

  3. Click the Style button near the top of the sidebar, then in the Alignment section, click the Paragraph Direction button.

    The Paragraph Direction button in the Alignment section of the Format sidebar.

Reverse the table or sheet direction

If you reverse the table direction, header rows move to the other side and column order is reversed. If you reverse a sheet, all tables on the sheet, as well as the relative position of all objects on the sheet, are reversed.

Do any of the following:

When you change the direction, cell alignment is affected as follows:

See alsoUse bidirectional text