Element: copy event

The copy event of the Clipboard API fires when the user initiates a copy action through the browser's user interface.

The event's default action is to copy the selection (if any) to the clipboard.

A handler for this event can modify the clipboard contents by calling setData(format, data) on the event's ClipboardEvent.clipboardData property, and canceling the event's default action using event.preventDefault().

However, the handler cannot read the clipboard data.

It's possible to construct and dispatch a synthetic copy event, but this will not affect the system clipboard.

This event bubbles up the DOM tree, eventually to Document and Window, is cancelable and is composed.

Syntax

Use the event name in addEventListener():

addEventListener("copy", (event) => { })

Alternatively, assign to the event handler property of the interface:

oncopy = (event) => { }

Event type

A ClipboardEvent. Inherits from Event.

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 source = document.querySelector("div.source");

source.addEventListener("copy", (event) => {
  const selection = document.getSelection();
  event.clipboardData.setData("text/plain", selection.toString().toUpperCase());
  event.preventDefault();
});

Result

Specifications

Browser compatibility

See also

• cut event
• paste event