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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?

Sam
  • 1,476
Mert Nuhoglu
  • 2,470

3 Answers3

5

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

Daryn
  • 595
1

Concerning MS Office 365 (Word, OneNote, PowerPoint, Outlook), it also happens with Windows 10, 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.

Sandra Rossi
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-2

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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Chin
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