A period on the wrong margin, a full stop that vanishes after export, a question mark that looks flipped — these are documented, recurring issues, not a one-off mistake in your file.
Sourced from a real, still-active Adobe Community thread and a confirmed Adobe bug report — reviewed by Ata Rafi, Founder and Chief Formatter at Format Fix, who checks punctuation placement on every Arabic manuscript before delivery, not just at final proof.
Request A Free QuoteMost cases trace back to one of two things: text pasted from a left-to-right source carrying over direction logic that misplaces the period, or a justification/kashida interaction that drops the full stop entirely during PDF export. A smaller number of cases are simply a misunderstanding of how Arabic punctuation marks are supposed to behave in the first place — covered further down.
This exact symptom is described in a real Adobe Community thread: the period winds up on the right margin at the end of the text, instead of after the last character at the true end of the line. It happens specifically when Arabic text is copied from Word and pasted into InDesign, even when the paragraph is otherwise flowing correctly right-to-left.
The paste operation carries over direction and shaping data from Word incorrectly, so the period attaches to a fixed margin position rather than to the actual last character of the sentence as the line reflows.
Check where the period sits relative to the last word of the sentence after any reflow or edit — not just at a glance, since it can look correct until the line length changes.
One confirmed workaround from the sourced thread: build a new text frame filled with Arabic placeholder text first, then create a paragraph style from that frame to apply elsewhere — a user confirmed this still worked as of January 2025. A newer alternative is the English-Arabic edition of InDesign through Creative Cloud, which offers better character-level directional control. See Fixing Arabic Text Direction in InDesign for how that edition handles RTL settings more broadly.
The full stop still displays correctly inside InDesign itself, but is dropped specifically during PDF export when the paragraph is fully justified and kashidas have adjusted the line's spacing.
Compare the exported PDF directly against the InDesign file, sentence by sentence, in justified paragraphs specifically — the period can look present right up until export and still not appear in the final PDF.
A sourced workaround: add a space after the full stop. In the affected cases, the added space disappears in the exported PDF instead of the period, which is the practical outcome that matters for the final file.
Some Arabic punctuation marks change shape and placement from their English equivalents, and some don't. Treating all punctuation as "just mirrored" is itself a common source of placement errors.
Both documented cases above involve InDesign, but the underlying cause is direction and justification logic mishandling a script that reads right-to-left — not a flaw unique to one program.
Word-to-InDesign paste (period misplacement) and InDesign's PDF export with kashidas (disappearing full stop) — both sourced, confirmed cases.
Any tool carrying incorrect direction data forward from a Word source, or exporting justified Arabic text — part of the same failure family as Why Does My Arabic Text Look Broken, Reversed, or Disconnected? and Fixing Arabic Text Direction in InDesign.
Examples of correctly typeset Arabic punctuation across full manuscripts are in the portfolio.
Writers formatting their own Arabic manuscript who haven't seen this exact bug before and assume it's something they did wrong.
Publishers using full justification for a polished print layout, where the kashida-related dropped-period bug is most likely to surface.
Authors and editors moving a manuscript from Word into a design tool, where the paste-related period misplacement is most likely to occur.
Already dealing with a file that has these errors? Get a quote for a diagnosis and fix.
Most cases come from one of two causes: text pasted from a left-to-right source carrying over incorrect direction logic, or a justification/kashida interaction that drops the punctuation mark entirely during PDF export.
This is a documented issue that occurs when Arabic text is pasted from Word into InDesign — the period attaches to a fixed margin position rather than the true last character of the reflowed sentence.
This is a separate, confirmed Adobe bug tied to kashida use in fully justified Arabic text. The period displays correctly in InDesign but is dropped specifically during PDF export.
Yes — the documented bug is officially titled "Fully justified Arabic text drops the final period" and occurs specifically when kashidas have been used to justify the line.
Yes — the Arabic comma is inverted from the English form and attaches directly to the word on its right, with the following space placed to its left.
The Arabic question mark is horizontally flipped from its English form and placed at the sentence's true end, which in right-to-left text is the far left of the line.
The two documented cases here involve InDesign specifically, but the underlying cause — direction and justification logic mishandling right-to-left script — isn't unique to one tool and shows up in Word and other design software as well.
