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In Windows 7 and 8, the following keyboard shortcuts exist when both left-to-right and right-to-left languages are installed:

  • Ctrl+Right Shift sets the text direction to right-to-left.
  • Ctrl+Left Shift sets the text direction to left-to-right.

This is a problem because they conflict with the standard Ctrl+Shift+→ and Ctrl+Shift+← shortcuts. (These are used to select the next/previous word, respectively.)

Besides removing the right-to-left languages from the system, is there a way to disable these shortcuts?

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  • Which word processors? The keyboard shortcuts for left align and right align are usually Ctrl + L and Ctrl + R, respectively.
    – iglvzx
    Mar 15, 2012 at 16:31
  • 1
    Notepad, for instance, although I would rather categorize it as self-inflicted pain rather than a word processor.
    – Jonas Byström
    Sep 19, 2012 at 10:54
  • Is the RTL switch happening also when you have active En (English - United States) keyboard?
    – miroxlav
    Jul 29, 2015 at 17:24

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
4

I haven't found how to disable the shortcut withing Windows, but if you're open to using AutoHotKey, there's a workaround:

Use AutoHotKey to map Right Shift to be Left Shift

No more RTL by mistake, and my Ctrl+Shift+← works without problem. I don't yet know of any reason why I need RShift, so I'm happy with this so far.

AutoHotKey mapping syntax is simple on this one:

RShift::LShift

Credit: Inspired by @gogowitsch in a comment on https://superuser.com/a/490244/93731

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1

It also happens with Windows 10, MS Office 365 (Word, OneNote, PowerPoint, Outlook. Whatever the keyboard is EN or other. Any key combinations with Ctrl+Shift can lead to mistakenly switch from Left-To-Right (LTR) to Right-To-Left (RTL) and vice versa (Ctrl+Shift+V, etc.)

It's a feature of Office when you have both RTL and LTR languages installed, and it seems it cannot be deactivated if you keep both types of languages installed.

You are lucky if you need only either RTL languages, or only LTR languages. Otherwise, no solution.

You can remove the languages from any Office application, below example is from MS Word, but it will impact other Office applications:

  • File:

    MS Word Office 365 File menu

  • Click "Options":

    MS Word Office 365 File menu

  • Click "Language". Here I have decided to remove the RTL languages (Arabic), to keep only LTR languages (English, French):

    MS Word Office 365 Options

  • Then restart all your Office applications and Ctrl+Shift is no more an issue:

    Restart your Office applications

NB: credits to Benjamin and TKWatcher.

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  • Thank you! This worked for me on Windows 11 w/ Office365 when the "Advanced Key Settings" failed to make any difference.
    – ndtrek07
    Nov 9 at 20:28
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Go to Control Panel -> Clock, Language, and Region -> Language -> Advanced settings -> Advanced Key Settings -> Change Key Sequence... and change the settings to Not Assigned

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  • 3
    I tried, this doesn't actually stop the RTL change from happening when I hit Ctrl+RightShift (and end up not hitting the left or right arrow)
    – Daryn
    Mar 23, 2017 at 19:23
  • I think this answer is valid for this question, but not for the question above.
    – Sandra Rossi
    Feb 10 at 16:07

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