Yep, exactly my experience, fine in Notepad AND fine when pasted from there into a new message.
Not sure but I think that when I pasted from Notepad into the same message screen (now emptied of visible characters by my select all/ cut/) I was typing backward again.
(What would we ever do without Notepad.)
Even weirder, the example I pasted into my plea for help appeared "backwards" in the message window but has been corrected in the posted version. Obviously should have had Greenshot do a screenshot instead of pasting text.
And how do you reproduce the effect until you find the cause... a conundrum, or possibly palimpsest...
One thing that occured to me is that it might have something to do with the "A" key, which is one that gets pressed accidentally (my control key is remapped to be opposite it for faster typing), because Arabic languages are right to left. But nothing I've tried has evoked the boustrephodon glitch yet.
Thanks for replying, it's always good to know the glitch has attacked someone else!
molly