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Localizing Your Website in Right-to-Left Languages – Quick Tip #1

By October 14, 2013 January 15th, 2016 No Comments

Hello! Welcome to our new series of “Quick Tips” that answer questions we often hear from our customers.

Questions you just might be asking as well. We hope you’ll find them useful, and come back for more.

NOTE: These answers are from “Building Bridges To Global Success”. Get your free guide here!


 

Quick Tip #1 – Localizing your website into right-to-left (RTL) languages.

Question: “How will our web pages display Asian languages or those used in the Middle
East?”

Answers: If you’re planning on localizing your website for Arabic and Hebrew, then your underlying HTML code must have the capability of properly rendering RTL (right to left) text.

Not only that, but your design must be capable of flipping the Navigation Menus to the “right” side of the page, without flipping underlying images that may be part of your corporate branding. For example, see image below.

Localizing Your Website in RTL Languages

As for Chinese, Korean and Japanese, characters must be displayed in odd-numbered font sizes. 9-point is the minimum; 10-pt cannot be used. 11-pt is OK.  For readability with modern high-resolution laptop/notebook PCs, Lao requires a minimum of a 13-pt font.

Beware that improper font sizes cause “clipping” of the text, making the text unreadable or ugly, and also making prospective customers go elsewhere.

Nothing causes a quicker exit than visiting a web site and having it look broken

Here at Medialocate, we can help you create web pages that will respond properly to internationalized text, including both LTR and RTL languages.

PS: These “Quick Tips” are just a few you’ll find in our new guide, “Building Bridges To Global Success”. Download the full PDF guide here!

 

Have more questions about localizing your website for new global audiences?

Call us at 1-800-776-0857.

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