Hello!
I wanted to report a problem with the text component
The component works great in all languages, but I noticed that in the Hebrew language (and probably also in Arabic) the order of the letters is reversed
This is a well-known problem in Hebrew because it needs RTL support
.redro esrever ni nettirw si txet elohw eht taht si ti gnitartsurf woh kniht tsuJ
(Just think how frustrating it is that the whole text is written in reverse.)
Another important thing to note is that we (speakers of RTL languages) are very aware of this problem, but designers who do not speak these languages often encounter this problem without noticing. For example, even in the familiar game - Brawl Stars (They corrected this after the post was published) and many others have problems with the Hebrew text displayed in the screenshots of the game in Google play
While this is not added you can take advantage of plugins for this. I’m sure you’re aware, but there are a few that help with this, Arabic & RTL Support being the most installed one.
Actually, this is a real pain point for a big part of the population who speak the RTL languages.
Many companies are waiting with their transition to Figma because of the lack of support for these languages
Typing in RLT languages such as Persian (Farsi) is really a hassle in Figma, adobe xd simply fixed it from the beginning. This feature is really missing on Figma, there are plugins that reverse LRT but that’s not a consistent and permanent solution, and takes ages to do this on big projects. Please add this feature.
None of the plugins are a viable solution. Especially when we get to symbols, dynamic text and responsive layouts. Figma has been ignoring the community on this subject for years. Figma it is time for you to assume the design leadership role you claim to be entitled to and realize not all of your users look, talk, and write like you.
We are a Community of Hebrew/Arabic Native speakers.
We love Figma but it is not inclusive. our community represents more than 1500 companies (we are 3500 people and growing every day)
Hope that you will Finally realize the potential of the Israel ecosystem with more Unicorn companies anywhere in the world outside of the US
Cheers,
Your friend from Israel,
Ido Zaifman #fof_israel
It is very difficult for me to work with Figma when every word I have to make RTL with a dedicated plugin. Most of my sites are in Hebrew. I prefer to work with other software even though I did a Figma course
Working on Hebrew product is possible thanks to the community that provides plugins, but it’s still an incredible pain point. Plugins don’t work seamlessly, you need different plugins for different needs (writing va converting vs resizable components), it’s a challenge if you work with non-Hebrew speaking dev team, and makes it very difficult to make good typography.
Arabic is the 5th most used language in the world, with over 420 million speakers. There are also over 100 million speakers of Urdu and over 9 million speakers of Hebrew. As designers and developers, we shouldn’t just leave hundreds of millions of users behind. from Don’t be backwards by Alan Sien Wei Hshieh https://blog.prototypr.io/dont-be-backwards-2573b117c5d9
I love Figma! With proper RTL support, it would be the best Platform I ever used.
Please make me happy with other millions of users!
I think this is crucial for me to continue working on Figma as a designer who’s creating products in different languages like it’s for Arabic speakers which is a huge community…
Hi Figma team, let me draw your attention to the fact that this is the most voted-for feature request you have on your platform. It deserves your attention.
Israel has a vibrant design community that works with Figma, and most of them need writing ability from right to left (in Hebrew, Arabic and Amharic) - we are sure you have the ability to create quick localization of the language - make us happy!
It not just will make us happier but will improve the lives of millions of users.
Some stats about our languages:
Speakers of those languages are 12% of the whole world population. With Standard Arabic as the fifth most popular language in the world (see Ethnologue, Top 200 Languages)
