Translation is the easy part. The real work begins when text no longer runs left to right, digits behave differently, and index entries suddenly have to be sorted in reverse. Anyone who wants to publish globally quickly hits limits that no translation tool surfaces.
RTL is not a mirror
A common misunderstanding: right-to-left is just a mirrored layout. In reality, Farsi or Arabic mixes Latin technical terms, numbers and URLs into the RTL flow — the so-called bidi algorithm has to resolve every line correctly. Errors here produce text that native speakers instantly recognize as broken.
Multilingualism isn’t decided by the translation but by the details nobody sees — until they’re missing.
What often goes wrong
Index entries in Farsi sorted incorrectly
Numbers misplaced in a mixed bidi context
Hyphenation without language-specific rules
Footnote markers on the wrong side of the line
EPUB3 as the foundation
Native RTL EPUB3 doesn’t solve these problems automatically, but it provides the frame: correct reading direction, language-specific metadata, clean separation of content and presentation. On top of that you can build an export that works in Tehran as well as in Berlin — including checked hyphenation and correctly sorted indexes.
The reward for the effort is a market most self-publishers ignore. Those who master the technical pitfalls reach readers in languages with almost no professionally typeset competition. Multilingualism isn’t just reach — it’s often the easiest path to an open niche.