Element: insertAdjacentText() method

The insertAdjacentText() method of the Element interface, given a relative position and a string, inserts a new text node at the given position relative to the element it is called from.

Syntax

js
insertAdjacentText(where, data)

Parameters

where

A string representing the position relative to the element the method is called from; must be one of the following strings:

  • 'beforebegin': Before the element itself.
  • 'afterbegin': Just inside the element, before its first child.
  • 'beforeend': Just inside the element, after its last child.
  • 'afterend': After the element itself.
data

A string from which to create a new text node to insert at the given position where relative to the element the method is called from.

Return value

None (undefined).

Exceptions

SyntaxError DOMException

Thrown if where is not a recognized value.

Visualization of position names

html
<!-- beforebegin -->
<p>
  <!-- afterbegin -->
  foo
  <!-- beforeend -->
</p>
<!-- afterend -->

Note: The beforebegin and afterend positions work only if the node is in a tree and has an element parent.

Examples

js
beforeBtn.addEventListener("click", () => {
  para.insertAdjacentText("afterbegin", textInput.value);
});

afterBtn.addEventListener("click", () => {
  para.insertAdjacentText("beforeend", textInput.value);
});

Have a look at our insertAdjacentText.html demo on GitHub (see the source code too.) Here we have a simple paragraph. You can enter some text into the form element, then press the Insert before and Insert after buttons to insert it before or after the existing paragraph text using insertAdjacentText(). Note that the existing text node is not added to — further text nodes are created containing the new additions.

Specifications

Specification
DOM Standard
# dom-element-insertadjacenttext

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser

See also