HTMLElement.innerText

The innerText property of the HTMLElement interface represents the "rendered" text content of a node and its descendants. As a getter, it approximates the text the user would get if they highlighted the contents of the element with the cursor and then copied it to the clipboard.

Note: innerText is easily confused with Node.textContent, but there are important differences between the two. Basically, innerText is aware of the rendered appearance of text, while textContent is not.

Syntax

const renderedText = htmlElement.innerText
htmlElement.innerText = string

Value

A DOMString representing the rendered text content of an element. If the element itself is not being rendered (e.g detached from the document or is hidden from view), the returned value is the same as the Node.textContent property.

Example

This example compares innerText with Node.textContent. Note how innerText is aware of things like <br> elements, and ignores hidden elements.

HTML

<h3>Source element:</h3>
<p id="source">
  <style>#source { color: red;  } #text { text-transform: uppercase; }</style>
<span id=text>Take a look at<br>how this text<br>is interpreted
       below.</span>
  <span style="display:none">HIDDEN TEXT</span>
</p>
<h3>Result of textContent:</h3>
<textarea id="textContentOutput" rows="6" cols="30" readonly>...</textarea>
<h3>Result of innerText:</h3>
<textarea id="innerTextOutput" rows="6" cols="30" readonly>...</textarea>

JavaScript

const source = document.getElementById("source");
const textContentOutput = document.getElementById("textContentOutput");
const innerTextOutput = document.getElementById("innerTextOutput");

textContentOutput.value = source.textContent;
innerTextOutput.value = source.innerText;

Result

Specification

Specification Status Comment
HTML Living Standard
The definition of 'innerText' in that specification.
Living Standard Introduced, based on the draft of the innerText specification. See whatwg/html#465 and whatwg/compat#5 for history.

Browser compatibility

DesktopMobile
ChromeEdgeFirefoxInternet ExplorerOperaSafariAndroid webviewChrome for AndroidFirefox for AndroidOpera for AndroidSafari on iOSSamsung Internet
innerTextChrome Full support 1Edge Full support 12Firefox Full support 45IE Full support 5.5Opera Full support 9.6Safari Full support 3WebView Android Full support 4.4Chrome Android Full support 18Firefox Android Full support 45Opera Android Full support 10.1Safari iOS Full support 4Samsung Internet Android Full support 1.0

Legend

Full support
Full support

See also