how to find out the submenu item's name in this special case (for a shortcut)
The indented menu items start with tabs, but there are still two of them.

tell application "System Events" to tell process "TextEdit" to name of menu items of menu 1 of menu item "Writing Direction" of menu 1 of menu item "Text" of menu "Format" of menu bar 1

You can specify some shortcuts like Format-&gt;Indentation-&gt;Increase in 10.8 (or &gt;Format&gt;Indentation&gt;Increase in 10.7), but it doesn't help in this case.



You can enable shortcuts for changing writing direction in System Preferences: