RTL localization for Arabic and Hebrew app listings

The text direction is the easy part

Setting `dir="rtl"` on the canvas flips the text, and any tool that supports it handles the punctuation and the numerals correctly. The numbers stay left-to-right inside an Arabic sentence, which is correct, and it looks odd only until you have seen it in a real listing.

The reading order is the hard part

In a left-to-right slide, the eye goes headline first, then to the device, then to the caption. Mirrored, the eye goes right to left — so the device has to move to the other side, or the headline has to move.

Anything that has an inherent direction has to be checked: a progress bar, a timeline, a side navigation, a device that sits on the left with text on the right. The rule is not "mirror everything". It is "put the content in the order an Arabic reader reaches it".

Three things people forget

The product name stays in Latin script. In an Arabic listing, the app name is still the app name, and the layout flips around it rather than mirroring it.

The device frame is part of the composition, not a neutral border. If the phone is on the left in every other language, it has to move in Arabic.

Mixed-direction strings break. A headline that contains a Latin product name inside Arabic text needs a bidi isolate, or the punctuation lands on the wrong side of the name.

What to check before you publish

Look at the Arabic and Hebrew slides once, at full size, with no intention of fixing anything until something is obviously wrong. It is much easier to spot a misplaced frame in a review pass than to reason about it in advance.

• Does the text read right to left, and are the numerals still correct?
• Is the device on the side an Arabic reader expects?
• Is the product name still in Latin script, and does the punctuation sit correctly around it?
• Is the headline still on one or two lines, or did it wrap into three?
• Do the accent colours and buttons sit where the reading order expects them?