With the release of the CS4 Creative Suite, Adobe decided to make it possible to open and edit any CS4 document even if it was created in a different flavor of InDesign [ME etc..]. To do so, Adobe built into the applications the capability to render and edit all the languages, however no interface was created, making it impossible to apply or change these properties. See typophile blog with comments from Eric Menninga and Thomas Phinney.

Though no graphical interface was created, the ability to script almost all of these properties was created for all versions Indesign CS4 as mentioned in the typophile blog and on the adobe forums (see post from Peter Kahrel). Built on the ability to script these properties, we created idRTL - a plug-in that allows viewing and editing of all the properties needed for international text.

However it is important to note that there are limitations to idRTL where for some users it will be necessary to purchase from Winsoft (the creators of Adobe's Middle Eastern [North African etc..] flavor of the creative Suite) the full featured international version of InDesign.

• International features are not supported by Adobe and are like a beta, though very few bugs have been reported.
• Story Editor displays right-to-Left text correctly only in ME version.
• InCopy can't display or format right-to-Left text.
• Spelling dictionaries and Hyphenation rules are not included for international languages.
• Story Direction property can't be set as part of an object style.
• Visual Cursor Option - using left and right arrows on keyboard move cursor the same direction as cursor moves on screen.
• The ability to Force neutral Characters to be Right-To-Left to Left-To-Right.
• The Reverse Layout function - to reverse layout of complete document at one time.
• Winsoft bundles along with its software international fonts, which are obviously not included in the standard version of InDesign.