Setting Write Direction and Alignment

• Download Exe.zip - 1.8 MB
• Download Test_RTL.zip - 131.8 KB

Introduction

Sometimes, you want your CEdit control to be set to the language used, which can be Left to Right (default) or Right to Left.

• Arabic
• Aramaic
• Azeri
• Dhivehi/Maldivian
• Hebrew
• Kurdish (Sorani)
• Persian/Farsi
• Urdu

See this article for further reading.

Using the Code

Assuming your control name is m_MyEdit, here is the code:

void MyDialog::SetLangDirection(bool RTL)
{
    wprintf(L"Setting language direction to %s", (RTL) ? L"right to left" : L"left to right");
    DWORD w_dwStyle;

    w_dwStyle = GetWindowLong(m_MyEdit.GetSafeHwnd(), GWL_EXSTYLE);

    if (RTL)
    {
        w_dwStyle -= WS_EX_LEFT | WS_EX_LTRREADING;
        w_dwStyle |= WS_EX_RIGHT | WS_EX_RTLREADING;
    }
    else
    {
        w_dwStyle -= WS_EX_RIGHT | WS_EX_RTLREADING;
        w_dwStyle |= WS_EX_LEFT | WS_EX_LTRREADING;
    }

    SetWindowLong(m_MyEdit.GetSafeHwnd(), GWL_EXSTYLE, w_dwStyle);
}

When you press the RTL button, you should be able to see text aligned to the right, with RTL writing direction:

If you press the LTR, the text will be aligned to the left with LTR writing direction:

History

• 4^th July, 2020: Initial version