Reversing Text

For right-to-left languages, you can swap the default left-to-right layout in most browsers simply through the dir attribute.

<body dir="rtl">
  text in right-to-left language
</body>

You can use that attribute on any text element, it doesn't have to be the body. Likewise, you can swap it with just CSS:

body {
  unicode-bidi:bidi-override;
  direction:rtl;
}

The following are "less practical" but still interesting:

/* Flip each letter backwards */
div {
  -webkit-transform:rotateY(180deg);
  -moz-transform:rotateY(180deg);
  -o-transform:rotateY(180deg);
  -ms-transform:rotateY(180deg);
  unicode-bidi:bidi-override;
  direction:rtl;
}
/* Entire text flipped around */
div {
  -webkit-transform:rotateY(180deg);
  -moz-transform:rotateY(180deg);
  -o-transform:rotateY(180deg);
  -ms-transform:rotateY(180deg);
}

Reference URL

Comments

  1. Zsitro
    Permalink to comment#

    Nice snippet :)

    Reply ↓
  2. Ako Kaman
    Permalink to comment#

    Nice tip. I rarely see tips about Right-to-left languages.

    Reply ↓
  3. Brendan Glyn-jones
    Permalink to comment#

    This was exactly what I was looking for thank you. I just have one question: if a blind person was reading your sight and came over this, would their device read the text correctly or would it see it in reverse?

    Reply ↓

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Posting Code

We highly encourage you to post problematic HTML/CSS/JavaScript over on CodePen and include the link in your post. It's much easier to see, understand, and help with when you do that.

Markdown is supported, so you can write inline code like `<div>this</div>` or multiline blocks of code in triple backtick fences like this:

```
<script>
  function example() {
    element.innerHTML = "<div>code</div>";
  }
</script>
```

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