If you find that entering text into webpages, searches, and the Location bar are appearing right-to-left instead of left-to-right, there are a few possible causes. This article lists the possible causes and solutions.
Table of Contents
Keyboard shortcut
The most common cause for switching the text direction is that you accidentally pressed a keyboard shortcut on your computer. To change it back, perform the following steps:
- Highlight the text in the form field where to change the text direction.
- Press the shortcut Ctrlcommand+Shift+X
The text direction in form fields should revert back to normal.
Add-ons
Sometimes, add-ons can cause the text direction to be changed. To make sure that no add-ons are causing the problem, start Firefox in Diagnose Firefox issues using Troubleshoot Mode.
Click the menu button 
, click , select and click in the Restart Firefox in Troubleshoot Mode? dialog.
firefox -safe-modeYou may need to specify the Firefox installation path (e.g. /usr/lib/firefox).
- In the Firefox Safe Mode dialog, click .
- If the text direction appears to be normal in Safe Mode, then one of your add-ons is causing problems. See Troubleshoot extensions, themes and hardware acceleration issues to solve common Firefox problems on how to find the faulty add-on and disable it.
Java applet running in another tab
Java is a programming language that some websites use for interactive content such as online games. Specific Java applets are sometimes known to cause text direction problems. To determine if this is the problem, close all other tabs except the current one. If the issue is still not resolved, try to upgrade to the latest version of Java. See the Installing or updating Java Knowledge Base Article for further details.
