how to change cursor movement and entry order in cells in numbers?

topcobok wrote:

It happens in just one file. Others don't have this problem. What did I press to have this?

Maybe you can solve the mystery by checking the keyboard combinations listed in this support document.

Change the direction of text as you type on Mac - Apple Support

Maybe you inadvertently pressed this?

Control-Option-Command-Left Arrow

which the support document says you can reverse with:

Control-Option-Command-Right Arrow

If you haven't done so already, it might also be a good idea to try restarting your Mac. It's amazing how often that banishes mysterious problems.

BTW, not sure about the aversion to Arabic in this thread. I understand it's always RTL. That's easy. Chinese can come LTR, RTL, or TTB and RTL. I remember going to a movie once and seeing LTR English subtitles, RTL Chinese subtitles, with the audio in a multiple languages. Now that was challenging.

SG

Hi Topcobok,

What do you see in Format Panel > Table > Scroll to the bottom > Table Direction?

This table behaves the way you describe.

Regards,

Ian.

Hi J & **,

Anything under Menu > Table > Reverse Table Direction?

Or...

Or... Maybe ** is onto something. I did have a play with Arabic some time ago, but it is now at the bottom of my System Preferences > General > Language & Region.

Regards,

Ian.

I don't have anything there either. Is it maybe related to your region or having a "reverse direction" language set up in System Preferences?

SG,

I'm not averse to Arabic, or to anyone who speaks or writes in it. I just have no reason or desire to tempt fate by fooling around with it on my computer. Last week I had my computer start to write Right to Left for no reason that I could determine. A Restart fixed it.

Jerry

After adding Arabic as a language, the ability to change table direction appeared, as did a button in the Text tab for changing text direction. Neither gave me the ability to type backwards, though. I then added Arabic as an input source and, with it chosen, I could type backward (cursor blinking on the left) but only backwards. However, it would do something different if I selected reverse text then typed a "word". It would interpret the characters differently and convert it to a different "word" depending on the "text direction", but I don't read Arabic. After I hit Return, it changed the cell to "forward text". It is not reversing the text nor reversing text entry so I obviously don't know how to use this "feature".

I cannot replicate the original poster's problem nor get Numbers to do what I was expecting it to do. I am removing the extra input source and language.

Not sure if this helps, but in response to Ian's question "Anything under Menu > Table > Reverse Table Direction?", I looked there. With Numbers running, but with no active document, I get:

With any any Numbers document, including a blank template document, I get:

I plan to stay away from "Arabic as a language".

Regards,

Jerry

Ian,

I've got nothing in that lower segment of the Table Format pane. Does the presence of a control there depend having a certain type of table active?

Jerry

Hi Jerry,

It works for any selected table. Tested in Numbers 13.1 under macOS Ventura 13.13.1

Regards,

Ian.