Right-to-Left Script

Today, Instant Articles supports right-to-left (RTL) read scripts, including languages like Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, and Urdu.

This new functionality gives publishers more flexibility to publish Instant Articles in the scripts that serve their audience on Facebook who read right to left. Instant Articles is continuing to expand globally so that more people around the world can have a faster, more immersive news reading experience.

Publishers may create RTL Instant Articles using the same RSS standards and HTML5 markup as before. However, in order for RTL content to render properly, publishers will need to add a dir="rtl" tag in the HTML element of the markup of each of their articles. RTL rendering is available in Instant Articles for Facebook on iOS V52 and Android v69 and later, and Pages Manager App on iOS v44 and Android v63 and later. On Facebook app versions older than these, articles tagged with dir="rtl" will default to a mobile web view. RTL articles will be filtered out of older versions of the Pages Manager app.

Learn more about creating RTL-read articles in our developer documentation.

Case Study: France24

France24 publishes in French, English, and Arabic to an audience in dozens of countries. Their previous implementation was restricted to English and French only. Beginning today, their Instant Articles feed includes the Arabic language articles that reach an average of 10 million readers on Facebook every month. For Bruno Pommeret, digital products and services Director at France24, “Facebook has become over the years a key partner as one of the main digital platforms to get and share news. We’re today delighted to offer to our increasingly engaged community a new browsing experience, as well as a simplified, enriched and quick access to international news in three languages.”

Other publishers launching RTL feeds today include Haaretz and Al Jazeera Arabic.

*Update: RTL content renders on Pages Manager App on Android v63 and later, in addition to the other Facebook and Pages Manager App versions noted.