René's URL Explorer Experiment

{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"DiscussionForumPosting","headline":"[Bug]: Add native RTL (right-to-left) text rendering support for Hebrew and Arabic","articleBody":"### Bug summary\n\nDescription:\nCurrently, when plotting with Hebrew or Arabic text in Matplotlib, the text is rendered incorrectly from left to right instead of right to left.\nUsers are required to manually integrate third-party libraries such as python-bidi and arabic_reshaper in order to display RTL text correctly.\n\nThis is inconvenient and creates extra friction for users working with RTL languages.\n\nSuggested improvement:\n\nAdd built-in support for RTL text rendering (especially for Hebrew and Arabic).\n\nMatplotlib should automatically detect text direction and render it accordingly, without requiring external preprocessing.\n\nIdeally, both labels (axes, legends, titles) and annotations should display correctly out-of-the-box.\n\nBenefit:\nThis will make Matplotlib more accessible for Hebrew/Arabic speakers and align with how other visualization libraries (and modern UI toolkits) handle RTL scripts automatically.\n\n### Code for reproduction\n\n```Python\nimport matplotlib.pyplot as plt\n\nplt.figure()\nplt.plot([1,2,3], [1,4,9], label=\"קריירה\")\nplt.title(\"זוגיות ובריאות\")\nplt.xlabel(\"שנה\")\nplt.ylabel(\"עוצמה\")\nplt.legend()\nplt.show()\n```\n\n### Actual outcome\n\nHebrew text is rendered left-to-right instead of right-to-left.\n\nFor example:\n\n\"קריירה\" appears as \"הרייקר\".\n\n\"זוגיות ובריאות\" appears reversed, with characters disconnected.\n\nThis affects titles, axis labels, legends, and annotations.\n\n### Expected outcome\n\nHebrew (and other RTL languages such as Arabic) should be rendered in correct right-to-left direction, with characters connected properly.\n\nExample: \"קריירה\" should appear exactly as written, without needing external preprocessing (e.g., python-bidi, arabic_reshaper).\n\n### Additional information\n\n_No response_\n\n### Operating system\n\n_No response_\n\n### Matplotlib Version\n\nMatplotlib version: 3.9.2 (installed via pip) Python version: 3.11 Platform: Windows 10 64-bit\n\n### Matplotlib Backend\n\n_No response_\n\n### Python version\n\n_No response_\n\n### Jupyter version\n\n_No response_\n\n### Installation\n\nNone","author":{"url":"https://github.com/MAVERICK2025692","@type":"Person","name":"MAVERICK2025692"},"datePublished":"2025-09-14T20:31:37.000Z","interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":"https://schema.org/CommentAction","userInteractionCount":3},"url":"https://github.com/30557/matplotlib/issues/30557"}