RTF supports bidirectional writing orders for languages such as Arabic. The controls are described below (as well as in the appropriate sections throughout this Application Note). Also refer to the associated character properties defined in “Associated Character Properties” on page 37 of this Application Note.
All the control words relating to bidirectional language support are repeated here for convenience.
| Control word | Meaning |
| \rtlch | The character data following this control word will be treated as a right-to-left run. |
| \ltrch | The character data following this control word will be treated as a left-to-right run (the default). |
| \rtlmark | The following characters should be displayed from right to left. |
| \ltrmark | The following characters should be displayed from left to right. |
| \rtlpar | Text in this paragraph will be displayed with right-to-left precedence |
| \ltrpar | Text in this paragraph will be displayed with left-to-right precedence (the default). |
| \rtlrow | Cells in this table row will have right-to-left precedence. |
| \ltrrow | Cells in this table row will have left-to-right precedence (the default). |
| \rtlsect | This section will thread columns from right to left. |
| \ltrsect | This section will thread columns from left to right (the default). |
| \rtldoc | Text in this document will be displayed from right to left unless overridden by a more specific control. |
| \ltrdoc | Text in this document will be displayed from left to right unless overridden by a more specific control (the default). |
| \zwj | Zero-width joiner. This is used for ligating characters. |
| \zwnj | Zero-width nonjoiner. This is used for unligating characters. |