Describes how to set base text direction for the text of symbols.

You can set user preferences for base text direction in the Designer through the Styling Customizer in Style Editing Mode. (The Styling Customizer provides the easiest way to set base text direction, but it can also be set by the baseTextDirection property in Styling Properties.)

You can also set base text direction preferences in the Map Builder, in the Dashboard Editor, and in the Symbol Editor.

You can also set base text direction preferences in the Dashboard Editor from the Options menu and in the Symbol Editor.

Base text direction can be set interactively according to your preference through Base Text Direction.

You can choose one of the following settings:

Base text direction and the implications of left to right, right to left, component orientation, contextual, and inherited values for directional runs are documented in Base text direction: supported values.

The default value Inherited means that the base text direction of the current object is inherited from its parent or container.

Each Text element in a Symbol has its own definition of base text direction. The base text direction of the Text element can be defined as a constant. You can set the base text direction through the Styling Customizer in Symbol Editing Mode.

Base text direction applies only to the Text element of a symbol. The value of base text direction applies only to the Text element on which it is set. For more information about setting base text direction dynamically to have the same value for all text elements of a symbol object, and dynamically assigning one specific base text direction value to a specific text element of the symbol object, see Changing base text direction dynamically at run time.

The following figure shows selection of base text direction.

Alternatively, base text direction can hold a reference to a parameter of a Symbol, instead of being a constant. See Assigning one specific value to a specific text element of a symbol.