Is it better to change the digit setting on my phone or to convert the texts I already have?

What the phone setting actually changes

On most phones the keyboard and the device's language or region decide which digits you type. The names and locations of these settings vary between devices and system versions, so look under the keyboard or the language and region settings on yours. Whatever the path, the setting acts at the moment of typing: the key you press is written in the style you chose.

Which means there are three things the setting does not do:

• It does not change messages you received before you changed it, or messages customers send from their own phones.
• It does not change saved files and lists, such as a customer sheet you started a year ago.
• It does not change what your staff type on their devices.

What converting changes

Conversion works on text that already exists. You paste in a message, a column from a sheet or a whole file, and every digit converts in one step. It prevents nothing in the future, though: the customer's next message arrives in whatever digits they type.

For example, a customer message reading رقم الطلب ٨٧٣١ والجوال ٠٥٠٠٠٠٠٠٠٠. No setting on your phone will change it, because it was typed on theirs. In the Arabic/Persian/Western digit converter it becomes Western digits in a second.

Which to choose depends on where the digits come from

1. If the Arabic-Indic digits come from you, say you type order numbers into a sheet on your phone: change the setting, and convert what you typed before, once.
2. If they come from customers: the setting will not help, since they type on their own devices. Convert what arrives before it goes into any system.
3. If they come from your team: agree on one digit style for everything that gets saved, and convert the old shared files once.
4. If they are in a supplier's file: convert the file. No phone setting has anything to do with it.

Why one alone is rarely enough

Because a store takes in text from more than one source. You can set your phone up perfectly and then get an order from a customer in Arabic-Indic digits, or a note from a staff member in Persian digits. The reverse holds too: you convert your old file completely, then tomorrow add a new row in Arabic-Indic digits because your phone setting never changed.

The practical answer is the right setting on the devices you and your team own, plus a steady habit of converting every outside text before you save it. Over time there is less to convert, but it never disappears entirely while customers type on their own phones.