How to paste text

Harry Theodoulou
Harry Theodoulou
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The modern way #

Using the Async Clipboard API #

To read text from the user's clipboard programmatically, for example, after a button click, you can use the readText() method of the Async Clipboard API. If permissions to read clipboard have not been granted yet, the call to navigator.clipboard.readText() will request it upon the first call to the method.

const pasteButton = document.querySelector('#paste-button');

pasteButton.addEventListener('click', async () => {
   try {
     const text = await navigator.clipboard.readText()
     document.querySelector('textarea').value += text;
     console.log('Text pasted.');
   } catch (error) {
     console.log('Failed to read clipboard');
   }
});
Browser support
  • 66
  • 63
  • 79
  • 13.1
Source

The classic way #

Using document.execCommand() #

By using the document.execCommand('paste') you can paste the clipboard content at the insertion point (currently focused HTML element). The execCommand method returns a boolean that indicates whether the paste event was successful. However this method comes with limitations, for example because it's synchronous, pasting large amounts of data can block the page.

pasteButton.addEventListener('click', () => {
  document.querySelector('textarea').focus();
  const result = document.execCommand('paste')
  console.log('document.execCommand result: ', result);
})
Browser support
  • 🗑
  • 🗑
  • 🗑
  • 🗑
Source

Progressive enhancement #

pasteButton.addEventListener('click', async () => {
   try {
     const text = await navigator.clipboard.readText()
     document.querySelector('textarea').value += text;
     console.log('Text pasted.');
   } catch (error) {
     console.log('Failed to read clipboard. Using execCommand instead.');
     document.querySelector('textarea').focus();
     const result = document.execCommand('paste')
     console.log('document.execCommand result: ', result);
   }
});

Further reading #

Demo #

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <meta charset="utf-8" />
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1" />
    <link
      rel="icon"
      href="data:image/svg+xml,<svg xmlns=%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22 viewBox=%220 0 100 100%22><text y=%22.9em%22 font-size=%2290%22>🎉</text></svg>"
    />
    <title>How to paste text</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1>How to paste text</h1>
    <p>
      <button type="button">Paste</button>
    </p>
    <textarea></textarea>
  </body>
</html>

const pasteButton = document.querySelector('button');

pasteButton.addEventListener('click', async () => {
  try {
    const text = await navigator.clipboard.readText()
    document.querySelector('textarea').value += text;
    console.log('Text pasted.');
  } catch (error) {
    console.log('Failed to read clipboard. Using execCommand instead.');
    document.querySelector('textarea').focus();
    const result = document.execCommand('paste')
    console.log('document.execCommand result: ', result);
  }
});
 
:root {
  color-scheme: dark light;
}

html {
  box-sizing: border-box;
}

*,
*:before,
*:after {
  box-sizing: inherit;
}

body {
  margin: 1rem;
  font-family: system-ui, sans-serif;
}

button {
  display: block;
}
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Last updated: — Improve article
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By Chrome DevRel