How to write texts from right to left in emails with Stripo

You don’t know how to start writing emails from right to left so that your texts, including numbers and punctuation, look correct? You’re not alone.

And those who do know how to deal with the code to send RTL emails are well aware of how time-consuming this could be.

Stripo has a dedicated RTL feature that works with the click of a button and does not require HTML coding skills. This makes creating multilingual emails in Arabic, Hebrew, or Urdu much easier.

Why the RTL option is your lifesaver

There are two main reasons for this:

1. To make emails legible for people from all over the world

RTL languages are a pretty common thing, and according to statistics, there are approximately over 2 billion potential users of these languages. So, there is a big chance that some of your audience speaks Arabic, Adlam, Hebrew, or other languages, especially if your brand spreads its marketing worldwide. 

Leaving this audience without dedicated translations with a proper RTL script is not only a big monetary loss but is also a great reputational hit as well.

2. To speed up email production

Those email marketers who deal with RTL scripts often know for sure that they need to:

• add the <dir=rtl> attribute to the email code;
• build a hierarchy of characters so that numerals do not reverse but stay the same so that names written in English do not reverse, etc.

All these take time and require certain skills.

How to write RTL text with Stripo

Enabling the RTL option is easy. Go to the General Styles settings of your template and scroll down to Right to Left Text Direction.

Click on this option to enable it, and you are good to go.

After that, every text in your template is transformed according to RTL.

If you need to apply RTL to a specific content block, just click on it and set the RTL option on in the specific block settings.

How our RTL feature works

Here are some points we’d like to highlight:

• our RTL properties apply to texts only, including text in buttons;
• to write texts RTL on banners, you need to turn the RTL option before you start writing texts on banners;
• punctuation marks, including dots and exclamation marks, that you put at the end of the line will start the RTL line;
  
  
• we do not mirror images;
• we do not reverse numbers;
• links with the RTL option enabled start with a slash (links will be read by all browsers and email clients correctly, even if English or any LTR language is set as the default one in a browser);
  
  
• we do not mirror the flow of email columns, so your email design remains the way you built it.

Things to consider when optimizing emails for RTL

When creating RTL emails as a non-native speaker, you should keep several things in mind so that your email design looks right for people accustomed to RTL content style.

1. Numerals are always read left to right

As the name of this section says, the numbers always stay the same for reading, no matter what language they are written in.

If you add a country calling code, be sure to omit spaces and any punctuation marks like dashes and brackets. Otherwise, your phone number will not be correct.

Here’s what a regular number looks like in our example.

Here’s what automatic RTL for our number looks like. Some things stayed the same, while the code number in brackets changed its position. So, let’s fix it.

The right way to do phone numbers in RTL is to keep them as they are in LTR, just like this.

This number will look like this in regular RTL like nothing happened.

2. Images are not mirrored (except for direction-based)

Do not mirror images that do not show direction, such as product photos. 

But do reverse progress bars (images of them), the play buttons, and star ratings. However, reversing them is a manual task, as you need to redraw your images and other design elements according to RTL rules (as we did in our example below).

In addition, in RTL emails, icons go to the right of the texts. Still, you must do this manually, editing their positions, as we don’t mirror images and icons.

3. Edit your fonts and line spacing for RTL emails

The languages that use the RTL script are normally somewhat italic. This means that we should avoid the italic type for our emails in Arabic, Urdu, and Hebrew.

The letters are higher than the Latin letters. So, it’s advisable to increase the line spacing when adding RTL texts to emails.

With Stripo, you can easily set the line spacing in just a few clicks. Just go to General Styles, and in this menu, you can set line spacing and other font-related options for stripes separately, headings and buttons once, and these options will work all the way you edit your email (until you want to change these settings or apply different settings within a specific content block you need).

4. Do not underline RTL texts

Underlining is a no-no if you are set on the path of RTL emails. If you want to highlight a piece of text, you may overline it. However, out of email accessibility reasons, we strongly recommend that you do none of the above. Instead, you may play with colors or make the necessary piece of text bold.

Wrapping up

This was a short guide, but the tips it brings to your email marketing will greatly improve the way you create your emails for your foreign audience. Stripo provides you with an easy-to-use RTL feature that simplifies the way you need to create RTL emails and requires no coding skills. However, you should always keep RTL design rules in mind, as our feature is only a tool, while you are the artist of your emails.