Designing for Right-to-Left (RTL) Languages in Figma

Around 500 million people read right-to-left (RTL) scripts — Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, and Urdu among them. If your product targets the Middle East or North Africa, RTL support is not optional. This guide covers what changes in an RTL design and how to produce RTL versions of your Figma files efficiently.

What actually changes in RTL design

• Text direction. Text reads right to left, and text alignment flips. Punctuation placement changes too.
• Layout mirroring. Navigation, progress indicators, back/forward arrows, and icon positions typically mirror. (Not everything mirrors — clocks, media controls, and brand logos usually stay.)
• Typography. Arabic scripts are more calligraphic and often need more line height. Latin fonts do not cover Arabic glyphs, so font substitution is mandatory.
• Numerals. Arabic-Indic numerals (٠١٢٣) are used in some locales, while others prefer Western digits. Confirm per market.

Common RTL mistakes in Figma files

• Translating text but leaving alignment left-to-right — the single most common error.
• Forgetting to mirror directional icons (chevrons, arrows) while incorrectly mirroring universal ones (play buttons).
• Using fonts without Arabic/Hebrew support, producing fallback-font rendering that breaks visual hierarchy.
• Not testing mixed-direction strings, such as an Arabic sentence containing an English brand name.

A practical RTL workflow in Figma

The fastest workflow is: design your source file with auto layout (so mirrored content reflows cleanly), then translate with an RTL-aware tool. Transez fully supports right-to-left languages such as Arabic and Hebrew — it automatically loads the fonts each target language needs and keeps text layers and styles consistent, so you review the result instead of rebuilding it.

After translation, do a review pass with a native speaker or RTL-experienced designer. Check alignment, icon direction, numeral style, and mixed-language strings. If you are new to multi-language Figma workflows, start with our complete Figma localization guide.

Conclusion

RTL design is mostly about direction, mirroring, and fonts — and all three are manageable when your translation workflow is script-aware. Get those right, and Arabic and Hebrew markets stop being special cases.