HTML Guides for text direction

The dir attribute on the <div> is set to an empty string. dir is an enumerated attribute that only accepts ltr, rtl, or auto, so an empty value is invalid.

The attribute sets the base text direction of an element's content: ltr for left-to-right scripts such as English, rtl for right-to-left scripts such as Arabic or Hebrew, and auto to let the browser decide from the first strongly typed character. An empty dir="" names none of these, so the browser has nothing to apply.

This normally comes from a template that prints dir="" when the variable feeding it is blank. If the element does not need an explicit direction, remove the attribute and it will inherit the direction of its parent. Otherwise, set one of the three valid values.

Invalid example

<div dir="">Welcome</div>

Valid example

Remove the attribute to inherit the direction from the parent:

<div>Welcome</div>

Or set a valid value. Use auto when the text comes from users and its direction is not known in advance:

<div dir="auto">مرحبا</div>