diff --git a/modules/book/book-export-html.tpl.php b/modules/book/book-export-html.tpl.php
index 4b25a766e18ce915b9e47cd1fabec4223f5e41fd..86aad2882ffaa74088cd2a50518c30287434672d 100644
--- a/modules/book/book-export-html.tpl.php
+++ b/modules/book/book-export-html.tpl.php
@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@
*/
?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
-<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="<?php print $language->language; ?>" xml:lang="<?php print $language->language; ?>">
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="<?php print $language->language; ?>" xml:lang="<?php print $language->language; ?>" dir="<?php print $dir; ?>">
<head>
<title><?php print $title; ?></title>
<?php print $head; ?>
diff --git a/modules/book/book.module b/modules/book/book.module
index 595d87d2ded0362961997e20cadebe60f6482fff..66d5b8b032b63a50323279f58b31421807a2cfc4 100644
--- a/modules/book/book.module
+++ b/modules/book/book.module
@@ -1119,6 +1119,7 @@ function template_preprocess_book_export_html(&$variables) {
$variables['language'] = $language;
$variables['language_rtl'] = ($language->direction == LANGUAGE_RTL);
$variables['head'] = drupal_get_html_head();
+ $variables['dir'] = $language->direction ? 'rtl' : 'ltr';
}
/**