---
title: baseWritingDirection
framework: appkit
role: symbol
role_heading: Instance Property
path: appkit/nscontrol/basewritingdirection
---

# baseWritingDirection

The initial writing direction used to determine the actual writing direction for text.

## Declaration

```swift
var baseWritingDirection: NSWritingDirection { get set }
```

## Discussion

Discussion This property can have one of the following values: NSWritingDirectionNatural, NSWritingDirectionLeftToRight, or NSWritingDirectionRightToLeft. The default value is NSWritingDirectionNatural. The text system uses this value as a hint for calculating the actual direction for displaying Unicode characters. You should not need to access this value directly. If you know the base writing direction of the text you are rendering, you can set this property to specify that direction to the text system.

## See Also

### Formatting Text

- [alignment](appkit/nscontrol/alignment.md)
- [font](appkit/nscontrol/font.md)
- [lineBreakMode](appkit/nscontrol/linebreakmode.md)
- [usesSingleLineMode](appkit/nscontrol/usessinglelinemode.md)
- [formatter](appkit/nscontrol/formatter.md)