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Right-to-left support

Learn how to implement right-to-left (RTL) text with Material UI to support languages such as Arabic, Persian, and Hebrew.

Setup

This guide outlines the three steps necessary to change the direction of text-based components in Material UI to support RTL languages, as shown in the demo below:

هذا نص مساعد

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1. Set the HTML direction

You can set the text direction either globally (across the entire app) or locally (specific to individual components), depending on your use case.

Globally

Add dir="rtl" to the app's root <html> to set the global text direction:

<html dir="rtl"></html>

If you can't set the dir attribute directly on the root <html> element, as a workaround, use the JavaScript API before the page is rendered:

document.documentElement.setAttribute('dir', 'rtl');

Locally

Add the dir="rtl" attribute to any other HTML element or React component if you need to limit the scope of the text direction to that element and its children.

2. Set the theme direction

Use the createTheme API to set the theme direction to 'rtl':

import { createTheme } from '@mui/material/styles';

const theme = createTheme({
  direction: 'rtl',
});

3. Configure RTL style plugin

Install the stylis-plugin-rtl using one of the commands below:

npm install stylis stylis-plugin-rtl

With Emotion

If you're using Emotion, use the CacheProvider to create a new cache instance that uses rtlPlugin from stylis-plugin-rtl and add that to the top of your application tree:

import { CacheProvider } from '@emotion/react';
import createCache from '@emotion/cache';
import { prefixer } from 'stylis';
import rtlPlugin from 'stylis-plugin-rtl';

// Create rtl cache
const cacheRtl = createCache({
  key: 'muirtl',
  stylisPlugins: [prefixer, rtlPlugin],
});

function Rtl(props) {
  return <CacheProvider value={cacheRtl}>{props.children}</CacheProvider>;
}

With styled-components

If you're using styled-components, use the StyleSheetManager and provide rtlPlugin to the stylisPlugins property:

import { StyleSheetManager } from 'styled-components';
import rtlPlugin from 'stylis-plugin-rtl';

function Rtl(props) {
  return (
    <StyleSheetManager stylisPlugins={[rtlPlugin]}>
      {props.children}
    </StyleSheetManager>
  );
}

Opting out of RTL locally

To turn off RTL on specific components, use the template literal syntax and add the /* @noflip */ directive:

const LeftToRightTextInRtlApp = styled('div')`
  /* @noflip */
  text-align: left;
`;
RTL normal behavior
RTL noflip
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