Specifying Reading Order

There are two conditions that can affect the reading order of text. Each language has an inherent reading order and, in text that mixes languages, there is a reading order for the separate runs of characters from each language.

ClosedReading Order Inherent to a Language

The inherent reading order of a language is the direction in which its symbols are read and written. Many languages, including English, Spanish, and Russian, read from left to right. A few, such as Hebrew and Arabic, read from right to left. The following examples demonstrate the difference between left-to-right and right-to-left reading order:

English is Left-to-Right (LTR):
People ought to wear more hats.
Start

Hebrew is Right-to-Left (RTL):
אנשים צריכים ללבוש יותר כובעים.
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ClosedReading Order in Directionally Mixed Text

When a line includes text from both RTL and LTR languages, it consists of separate runs of characters from each language. Within a run, the characters use the language's inherent reading order. But the series of runs also has a reading order, defined by the author's intent.

In this example, the numbers indicate the reading order of the runs and the arrows show the reading order within each run:

Hebrew included in English (overall reading order is LTR)
The Hebrew word for hat is כובע, which is hard to pronounce.
|1→                                          |  ←2|3→                                            |

English included in Hebrew (overall reading order is RTL)
המילה של אנגלית לכובע hat, שקשה לבטא.
|              ←3|2→ |                                ←1|

When text is printed with the wrong reading order, the results can be dramatic. In the following example, the text is a translation into Hebrew of the English term 2.5" Screw

Displayed LTR (as intended)
2.5" הברג
|1→|   ←2|

Incorrectly displayed RTL
2.5" הברג
|  ←2|1→|

ClosedSelecting the Reading Order in BarTender

Reading order can be set for the following areas of BarTender:

User Interface Edit Boxes

You can set reading order for all edit boxes in BarTender's user interface on the Regional Settings tab of the BarTender Document Options dialog. Examples of edit boxes affected by this setting include the following:

Templates

On templates, you can set the reading order for text objects and also for the human readable component of a barcode object. The Reading Order property is located on the Layout tab of the Text Format property page. When this property is set to Auto, the object's reading order is determined by the Script selected on the Advanced tab of the Font property page; scripts that are a variant of Arabic or Hebrew will dictate a right-to-left reading order.

Data Entry Forms

When designing data entry forms, you can specify a reading order for the form, as well as for the individual controls and objects on the form.