Click button copy to clipboard using jQuery

Update 2020: This solution uses execCommand. While that feature was fine at the moment of writing this answer, it is now considered obsolete. It will still work on many browsers, but its use is discouraged as support may be dropped.

There is another non-Flash way (apart from the Clipboard API mentioned in jfriend00's answer). You need to select the text and then execute the command copy to copy to the clipboard whatever text is currently selected on the page.

For example, this function will copy the content of the passed element into the clipboard (updated with suggestion in the comments from PointZeroTwo):

function copyToClipboard(element) {
    var $temp = $("<input>");
    $("body").append($temp);
    $temp.val($(element).text()).select();
    document.execCommand("copy");
    $temp.remove();
}

This is how it works:

  1. Creates a temporarily hidden text field.
  2. Copies the content of the element to that text field.
  3. Selects the content of the text field.
  4. Executes the command copy like: document.execCommand("copy").
  5. Removes the temporary text field.

NOTE that the inner text of the element can contain whitespace. So if you want to use if for example for passwords you may trim the text by using $(element).text().trim() in the code above.

You can see a quick demo here:

function copyToClipboard(element) {
  var $temp = $("<input>");
  $("body").append($temp);
  $temp.val($(element).text()).select();
  document.execCommand("copy");
  $temp.remove();
}
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<p id="p1">P1: I am paragraph 1</p>
<p id="p2">P2: I am a second paragraph</p>
<button onclick="copyToClipboard('#p1')">Copy P1</button>
<button onclick="copyToClipboard('#p2')">Copy P2</button>
<br/><br/><input type="text" placeholder="Paste here for test" />

The main issue is that not all browsers support this feature at the moment, but you can use it on the main ones from:

  • Chrome 43
  • Internet Explorer 10
  • Firefox 41
  • Safari 10

Update 1: This can be achieved also with a pure JavaScript solution (no jQuery):

function copyToClipboard(elementId) {

  // Create a "hidden" input
  var aux = document.createElement("input");

  // Assign it the value of the specified element
  aux.setAttribute("value", document.getElementById(elementId).innerHTML);

  // Append it to the body
  document.body.appendChild(aux);

  // Highlight its content
  aux.select();

  // Copy the highlighted text
  document.execCommand("copy");

  // Remove it from the body
  document.body.removeChild(aux);

}
<p id="p1">P1: I am paragraph 1</p>
<p id="p2">P2: I am a second paragraph</p>
<button onclick="copyToClipboard('p1')">Copy P1</button>
<button onclick="copyToClipboard('p2')">Copy P2</button>
<br/><br/><input type="text" placeholder="Paste here for test" />

Notice that we pass the id without the # now.

As madzohan reported in the comments below, there is some strange issue with the 64-bit version of Google Chrome in some cases (running the file locally). This issue seems to be fixed with the non-jQuery solution above.

Madzohan tried in Safari and the solution worked but using document.execCommand('SelectAll') instead of using .select() (as specified in the chat and in the comments below).

As PointZeroTwo points out in the comments, the code could be improved so it would return a success/failure result. You can see a demo on this jsFiddle.

UPDATE: COPY KEEPING THE TEXT FORMAT

As a user pointed out in the Spanish version of StackOverflow, the solutions listed above work perfectly if you want to copy the content of an element literally, but they don't work that great if you want to paste the copied text with format (as it is copied into an input type="text", the format is "lost").

A solution for that would be to copy into a content editable div and then copy it using the execCommand in a similar way. Here there is an example - click on the copy button and then paste into the content editable box below:

function copy(element_id){
  var aux = document.createElement("div");
  aux.setAttribute("contentEditable", true);
  aux.innerHTML = document.getElementById(element_id).innerHTML;
  aux.setAttribute("onfocus", "document.execCommand('selectAll',false,null)"); 
  document.body.appendChild(aux);
  aux.focus();
  document.execCommand("copy");
  document.body.removeChild(aux);
}
#target {
  width:400px;
  height:100px;
  border:1px solid #ccc;
}
<p id="demo"><b>Bold text</b> and <u>underlined text</u>.</p>
<button onclick="copy('demo')">Copy Keeping Format</button> 

<div id="target" contentEditable="true"></div>

And in jQuery, it would be like this:

function copy(selector){
  var $temp = $("<div>");
  $("body").append($temp);
  $temp.attr("contenteditable", true)
       .html($(selector).html()).select()
       .on("focus", function() { document.execCommand('selectAll',false,null); })
       .focus();
  document.execCommand("copy");
  $temp.remove();
}
#target {
  width:400px;
  height:100px;
  border:1px solid #ccc;
}
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

<p id="demo"><b>Bold text</b> and <u>underlined text</u>.</p>
<button onclick="copy('#demo')">Copy Keeping Format</button> 

<div id="target" contentEditable="true"></div>


Edit as of 2016

As of 2016, you can now copy text to the clipboard in most browsers because most browsers have the ability to programmatically copy a selection of text to the clipboard using document.execCommand("copy") that works off a selection.

As with some other actions in a browser (like opening a new window), the copy to clipboard can only be done via a specific user action (like a mouse click). For example, it cannot be done via a timer.

Here's a code example:

document.getElementById("copyButton").addEventListener("click", function() {
    copyToClipboard(document.getElementById("copyTarget"));
});

function copyToClipboard(elem) {
	  // create hidden text element, if it doesn't already exist
    var targetId = "_hiddenCopyText_";
    var isInput = elem.tagName === "INPUT" || elem.tagName === "TEXTAREA";
    var origSelectionStart, origSelectionEnd;
    if (isInput) {
        // can just use the original source element for the selection and copy
        target = elem;
        origSelectionStart = elem.selectionStart;
        origSelectionEnd = elem.selectionEnd;
    } else {
        // must use a temporary form element for the selection and copy
        target = document.getElementById(targetId);
        if (!target) {
            var target = document.createElement("textarea");
            target.style.position = "absolute";
            target.style.left = "-9999px";
            target.style.top = "0";
            target.id = targetId;
            document.body.appendChild(target);
        }
        target.textContent = elem.textContent;
    }
    // select the content
    var currentFocus = document.activeElement;
    target.focus();
    target.setSelectionRange(0, target.value.length);
    
    // copy the selection
    var succeed;
    try {
    	  succeed = document.execCommand("copy");
    } catch(e) {
        succeed = false;
    }
    // restore original focus
    if (currentFocus && typeof currentFocus.focus === "function") {
        currentFocus.focus();
    }
    
    if (isInput) {
        // restore prior selection
        elem.setSelectionRange(origSelectionStart, origSelectionEnd);
    } else {
        // clear temporary content
        target.textContent = "";
    }
    return succeed;
}
input {
  width: 400px;
}
<input type="text" id="copyTarget" value="Text to Copy"> <button id="copyButton">Copy</button><br><br>
<input type="text" placeholder="Click here and press Ctrl-V to see clipboard contents">

Here's a little more advanced demo: https://jsfiddle.net/jfriend00/v9g1x0o6/

And, you can also get a pre-built library that does this for you with clipboard.js.

Old, historical part of answer

Directly copying to the clipboard via JavaScript is not permitted by any modern browser for security reasons. The most common workaround is to use a Flash capability for copying to the clipboard that can only be triggered by a direct user click.

As mentioned already, ZeroClipboard is a popular set of code for managing the Flash object to do the copy. I've used it. If Flash is installed on the browsing device (which rules out mobile or tablet), it works.

The next most common work-around is to just place the clipboard-bound text into an input field, move the focus to that field and advise the user to press Ctrl + C to copy the text.

Other discussions of the issue and possible work-arounds can be found in these prior Stack Overflow posts:

  • How do I copy to the clipboard in JavaScript?

  • How to copy text to the client's clipboard using jQuery?

  • How can you copy to clipboard without Flash?

These questions asking for a modern alternative to using Flash have received lots of question upvotes and no answers with a solution (probably because none exist):

  • HTML5 alternative to flash-based ZeroClipboard for safe copying of data to clipboard?

  • Copy to clipboard without Flash

Internet Explorer and Firefox used to have non-standard APIs for accessing the clipboard, but their more modern versions have deprecated those methods (probably for security reasons).

There is a nascent standards effort to try to come up with a "safe" way to solve the most common clipboard problems (probably requiring a specific user action like the Flash solution requires), and it looks like it may be partially implemented in the latest versions of Firefox and Chrome, but I haven't confirmed that yet.


clipboard.js is a nice utility that allows copying of text or HTML data to the clipboard without use of Flash. It's very easy to use; just include the .js and use something like this:

<button id='markup-copy'>Copy Button</button>

<script>
    document.getElementById('markup-copy').addEventListener('click', function() {
        clipboard.copy({
            'text/plain': 'Markup text. Paste me into a rich text editor.',
            'text/html': '<i>here</i> is some <b>rich text</b>'
        }).then(
            function(){console.log('success'); },
            function(err){console.log('failure', err);
        });
    });
</script>

clipboard.js is also on GitHub.

Edit on Jan 15, 2016: The top answer was edited today to reference the same API in my answer posted in August 2015. The previous text was instructing users to use ZeroClipboard. Just want to be clear that I didn't yank this from jfriend00's answer, rather the other way around.

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