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HTMLElement.onpaste

Experimental: This is an experimental technology
Check the Browser compatibility table carefully before using this in production.

The HTMLElement.onpaste property of the HTMLElement interface is an event handler that processes paste events.

The paste event fires when the user attempts to paste text.

Note that there is currently no DOM-only way to obtain the text being pasted; you'll have to use an nsIClipboard to get that information.

Syntax

target.onpaste = functionRef;

Value

functionRef is a function name or a function expression. The function receives a ClipboardEvent object as its sole argument.

Example

This example logs every copy and paste attempt to the <textarea>.

HTML

<h3>Play with this text area:</h3>
<textarea id="editor" rows="3">Try copying and pasting text into this field!</textarea>

<h3>Log:</h3>
<p id="log"></p>

JavaScript

function logCopy(event) {
  log.innerText = 'Copied!\n' + log.innerText;
}

function logPaste(event) {
  log.innerText = 'Pasted!\n' + log.innerText;
}

const editor = document.getElementById('editor');
const log = document.getElementById('log');

editor.oncopy = logCopy;
editor.onpaste = logPaste;

Result

Specifications

WHATWG Standard

Browser compatibility

	Desktop						Mobile
	Chrome	Edge	Firefox	Internet Explorer	Opera	Safari	WebView Android	Chrome Android	Firefox for Android	Opera Android	Safari on IOS	Samsung Internet
`onpaste`	1	12	9	5.5 Before Internet Explorer 9, this event is not supported via `addEventListener`.	≤12.1	3	1	18	9	≤12.1	1	1.0

Since Firefox 13, the preference dom.event.clipboardevents.enabled controls this feature. It defaults to true but can be disabled.