Element: paste event

{{APIRef}}

The paste event of the Clipboard API is fired when the user has initiated a “paste” action through the browser’s user interface.

If the cursor is in an editable context (for example, in a {{HTMLElement("textarea")}} or an element with contenteditable attribute set to true) then the default action is to insert the contents of the clipboard into the document at the cursor position.

A handler for this event can access the clipboard contents by calling {{domxref("DataTransfer/getData", "getData()")}} on the event’s clipboardData property.

To override the default behavior (for example to insert some different data or a transformation of the clipboard contents) an event handler must cancel the default action using {{domxref("Event/preventDefault", "event.preventDefault()")}} , and then insert its desired data manually.

It’s possible to construct and dispatch a synthetic paste event, but this will not affect the document’s contents.

This event bubbles, is cancelable and is composed.

Syntax

Use the event name in methods like {{domxref("EventTarget.addEventListener", "addEventListener()")}} , or set an event handler property.

addEventListener("paste", (event) => {});

onpaste = (event) => {};

Event type

A {{domxref("ClipboardEvent")}} . Inherits from {{domxref("Event")}} .

{{InheritanceDiagram("ClipboardEvent")}}

Examples

Live example

HTML

<div class="source" contenteditable="true">Copy text from this box.</div>
<div class="target" contenteditable="true">And paste it into this one.</div>

div.source,
div.target {
  border: 1px solid gray;
  margin: 0.5rem;
  padding: 0.5rem;
  height: 1rem;
  background-color: #e9eef1;
}

JavaScript

const target = document.querySelector("div.target");

target.addEventListener("paste", (event) => {
  event.preventDefault();

  let paste = (event.clipboardData || window.clipboardData).getData("text");
  paste = paste.toUpperCase();
  const selection = window.getSelection();
  if (!selection.rangeCount) return;
  selection.deleteFromDocument();
  selection.getRangeAt(0).insertNode(document.createTextNode(paste));
  selection.collapseToEnd();
});

Result

{{ EmbedLiveSample('Live_example', '100%', '120px') }}

Specifications

{{Specifications}}

Browser compatibility

{{Compat}}

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