Arabic Typing in Microsoft Word: Complete Shortcuts & Setup Guide

Microsoft Word has the most complete Arabic word processing features of any mainstream software — but many users never discover these capabilities. This guide covers all the keyboard shortcuts, formatting settings, and features that make Arabic document creation in Word fast and professional, from initial setup to advanced bilingual formatting.

Initial Setup: Enabling Arabic in Word

1. Go to File → Options → Language
2. Under "Office authoring languages and proofing," click Add a Language
3. Search for and add Arabic (Saudi Arabia) or the Arabic variant you use
4. Click Set as Preferred if Arabic is your primary language, or leave English preferred for bilingual use
5. Restart Word if prompted

Adding Arabic enables: Arabic spellcheck, RTL paragraph direction controls, Arabic grammar checking, and Arabic date formats.

Essential Arabic RTL Shortcuts in Word

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl + Right Shift	Set current paragraph(s) to RTL (Right-to-Left)
Ctrl + Left Shift	Set current paragraph(s) to LTR (Left-to-Right)
Right Shift	Start typing in RTL mode within the current line
Left Shift	Start typing in LTR mode within the current line
Alt + F10	Show/hide BiDi formatting marks

Arabic Font Recommendations for Word

Font	Style	Best For	Pre-installed
Traditional Arabic	Classical Naskh	Formal documents, letters	Yes (Windows)
Simplified Arabic	Clean modern	Business reports	Yes (Windows)
Arabic Transparent	Minimal	Forms, small text	Yes (Windows)
Geeza Pro	Modern	General (macOS)	Yes (macOS)
Amiri	Classical serif	Academic, Quran	No (free download)
Cairo	Modern sans	Modern reports, slides	No (free download)

Setting Up an Arabic Document Template

For a Pure RTL Arabic Document:

1. Open a new blank document
2. Press Ctrl + A to select all (even if empty)
3. Press Ctrl + Right Shift to set document default to RTL
4. Go to Home tab → Paragraph group → click Right Align (or press Ctrl+R)
5. Set font to your preferred Arabic font and appropriate size (14pt body, 18pt heading)
6. Save as a .dotx template (File → Save As → Word Template) for reuse

For Bilingual Arabic/English Documents:

Each paragraph in Word has its own direction. Strategy for bilingual documents:

• Arabic paragraphs: use Ctrl+Right Shift to set RTL
• English paragraphs: use Ctrl+Left Shift to set LTR
• Within a paragraph, the cursor direction flips when you switch language input
• Numbers in Arabic text: Arabic uses Western numerals (1234) for most business content, or Eastern Arabic (١٢٣٤) for formal/government documents

Arabic Spellcheck in Word

After adding Arabic language (from setup above), Word's spellcheck automatically recognizes Arabic text and underlines errors in red. To manually trigger:

• F7 — Run full document spell check
• Right-click a red-underlined Arabic word for correction suggestions
• To disable Arabic spellcheck for a selection: select text → Review → Language → Select Language → Check "Do not check spelling or grammar"

Inserting Arabic Special Characters

For Arabic characters not on the keyboard, use Word's Symbol dialog:

1. Insert → Symbol → More Symbols
2. Change the font to an Arabic font
3. Change subset to "Arabic" or "Arabic Presentation Forms-A"
4. Select the character and click Insert

Or type the Unicode code point + Alt+X to insert directly: e.g., type 0641 then Alt+X to get ف

Arabic Heading Styles in Word

To create consistent Arabic headings with proper RTL:

1. Modify the default Heading 1-3 styles (right-click → Modify style)
2. In Format → Paragraph: set alignment to Right and Direction to RTL
3. Set Arabic font for the heading style

Once done, applying Heading 1/2/3 automatically formats in RTL with your Arabic font.