{"id":66,"date":"2018-11-28T10:56:00","date_gmt":"2018-11-28T08:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/?p=66"},"modified":"2024-09-05T11:58:11","modified_gmt":"2024-09-05T08:58:11","slug":"select-div-content-text-one-click-javascript","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/html-online.com\/articles\/select-div-content-text-one-click-javascript\/","title":{"rendered":"Select Div Content With a Single Click"},"content":{"rendered":"

Copying a text from a website can be uncomfortable. Help your site visitors select the text with a single click of a mouse button with this simple trick.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"select<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Check out the Live Demo<\/a> or click any code snippet on this page.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In case of an <input> element we have an easy job because we can solve that in just a couple lines of code:<\/p>\n

$<\/span>(\".selectable\"<\/span>).click<\/span>(function() {\n    $<\/span>(this<\/span>).select<\/span>();\n});\n<\/pre>\n
Unfortunately this doesn’t work for whole div sections and many others.<\/p>\n
The Code<\/h2>\n
Add the selectable<\/strong> class in your HTML code to each section you want to make selectable, like in the example below:<\/p>\n
<h1<\/span> class<\/span>=\"selectable\"<\/span>><\/span>At persius imperdiet<\/h1<\/span>><\/span>\n<div<\/span> class<\/span>=\"selectable\"<\/span>><\/span>\n    <p<\/span>><\/span>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet<\/p<\/span>><\/span>\n<\/div<\/span>><\/span>\n<div<\/span> class<\/span>=\"selectable\"<\/span>><\/span>\n    <p<\/span>><\/span>Quo debet vivendo ex.<\/p<\/span>><\/span>\n<\/div<\/span>><\/span>\n<\/pre>\n
\n
The JavaScript code parses the document and adds a custom ID to each element having our selector class and an onclick event listener, which calls the selectText<\/strong> function. This function takes the container ID as the input and selects the calculated range. jQuery is required.
\nWe had to update the code in 2024 to support new browsers:<\/p>\n
\n
$(document<\/span>).ready(function<\/span> () {\n\tvar<\/span> selectcounter =<\/span> 1<\/span>;\n\t\n\t$(".selectable"<\/span>).each(function<\/span>() {\n\t\tidja =<\/span> "selectable"<\/span> +<\/span> selectcounter;\n\t\t$(this<\/span>).attr('id'<\/span>, idja);\n\t\t$(this<\/span>).attr('onclick'<\/span>, 'selectText("'<\/span> +<\/span> idja +<\/span> '")'<\/span>);\n\t\tselectcounter++<\/span>;\n\t});\t\t\n});\n\nfunction<\/span> selectText(containerid) {\n    if<\/span> (document<\/span>.selection) {\n        var<\/span> range =<\/span> document<\/span>.body.createTextRange();\n        range.moveToElementText(document<\/span>.getElementById(containerid));\n        range.select();\n    } else<\/span> if<\/span> (window<\/span>.getSelection) {\n        var<\/span> selection =<\/span> window<\/span>.getSelection();\n        selection.removeAllRanges(); \/\/ Clear any existing selections<\/span>\n        var<\/span> range =<\/span> document<\/span>.createRange();\n        range.selectNode(document<\/span>.getElementById(containerid));\n        selection.addRange(range);\n    }\n}\n<\/pre>\n<\/div>\n
\n
We can set the mouse pointer to change when a selectable element is hovered with the CSS code below.<\/p>\n
.selectable<\/span> {\n    cursor<\/span>: pointer<\/span>;\n}\n<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Copying a text from a website can be uncomfortable. Help your site visitors select the text with a single click of a mouse button with this simple trick.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,3,4,5,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-freebies","category-html","category-javascript","category-jquery"],"yoast_head":"\nSelect Div Content Text With One Mouse Click - JavaScript<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Copying a text from a website can be uncomfortable. 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