Arabic and right-to-left support in business software: a checklist
“Supports Arabic” can mean anything from translated menus to a system designed for Arabic-first teams. Here is what to check before you buy or build, and a 15-minute test you can run on any demo.
The short answer
Real Arabic support means the whole screen mirrors from right to left, Arabic and English mix correctly in one field, numbers and dates follow the user’s choice, search finds Arabic names however they are spelt, and printed documents and PDFs come out right. Translation alone is not enough.
The checklist
- Layout mirrors: menus, icons with direction (arrows, back buttons), tables and forms all flip
- Mixed text: an Arabic sentence with an English product name or a phone number reads correctly
- Numbers: choice of Latin (123) or Arabic-Indic (١٢٣) digits; phone numbers and IBANs stay left to right
- Dates: Gregorian and, where needed, Hijri, with Arabic month names
- Search: finds أحمد when typed as احمد, and ignores diacritics
- Sorting: Arabic alphabetical order is correct
- PDFs and printouts: Arabic letters joined, right-aligned, with the right font
- Emails and WhatsApp templates: right-to-left in both, with correct variables
- Exports: Excel and CSV files open with Arabic intact (UTF-8)
- Bilingual records: names and addresses can be stored in Arabic and English
A 15-minute test on any demo
- Switch the interface to Arabic and open the busiest screen: does everything flip?
- Create a contact with an Arabic name, an English company name and a +971 phone number
- Search for the name without hamza and with a typo
- Print or export an invoice or payslip in Arabic and open the PDF
- Send yourself an email or WhatsApp message from the system in Arabic
- Export the list to Excel and open it
If you are building software
Design in Arabic from the start rather than flipping an English layout at the end. Use logical CSS properties (start and end, not left and right), set the direction on the page and on mixed-direction fields, keep numbers and codes left to right inside Arabic text, and test with real Arabic data, including long names and mixed scripts.
Sources
Rules change. Check the official text, or ask your accountant or lawyer, before you rely on a figure.
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