Element.insertAdjacentText()

The insertAdjacentText() method of the Element interface inserts a given text node at a given position relative to the element it is invoked upon.

Syntax

element.insertAdjacentText(position, element);

Parameters

position

A DOMString representing the position relative to the element; 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.

element

A DOMString representing the text to be inserted into the tree.

Return value

Void.

Exceptions

Visualization of position names

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

Example

beforeBtn.addEventListener('click', function() {
  para.insertAdjacentText('afterbegin',textInput.value);
});

afterBtn.addEventListener('click', function() {
  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.

Polyfill

You can polyfill the insertAdjacentText() method in Internet Explorer 5.5 (maybe earlier) and higher with the following code:

if (!Element.prototype.insertAdjacentText)
  Element.prototype.insertAdjacentText = function(type, txt){
    this.insertAdjacentHTML(
      type,
      (txt+'') // convert to string
        .replace(/&/g, '&') // embed ampersand symbols
        .replace(/</g, '&lt;') // embed less-than symbols
    )
  }

Specification

Browser compatibility

See also

• Element.insertAdjacentElement()
• Element.insertAdjacentHTML()