CSS direction

<!doctype html>
<title>Example</title>
<style>
  p { 
    direction: rtl; 
    }
</style>
<p>This text has had its properties set using the direction property.</p>
<p><strong>Note</strong>: The direction property is mainly used for languages that run from left to right or both. If you are using english characters, try adding some punctuation to see what effect they have, for example, a full stop at the end of a paragraph.</p>

The CSS direction property is used in conjunction with the unicode-bidi property to specify which direction the text should run (i.e. from left to right or right to left).

You can provide a value of either ltr or rtl to specify in which direction the text runs.

CSS uses line-left and line-left in its terminology. Text that is written from the left side to the right, starts at line-left. Text that is written from the right side to the left, starts at line-right.

Syntax

Possible Values

ltr: Left to right. Sets inline base direction (bidi directionality) to line-left-to-line-right.
rtl: Right to left. Sets inline base direction (bidi directionality) to line-right-to-line-left.

In addition, all CSS properties also accept the following CSS-wide keyword values as the sole component of their property value:

initial: Represents the value specified as the property's initial value.
inherit: Represents the computed value of the property on the element's parent.
unset: This value acts as either inherit or initial, depending on whether the property is inherited or not. In other words, it sets all properties to their parent value if they are inheritable or to their initial value if not inheritable.

General Information

Initial Value: ltr
Applies To: All elements
Inherited?: Yes
Media: Visual
Animatable?: No

Example Code

Official Specifications

CSS Writing Modes Level 3 (W3C Candidate Recommendation, 15 December 2015)
CSS Level 2.1 (W3C Recommendation 07 June 2011)