Why

Install

npm install clipboard --save

bower install clipboard --save

Setup

<script src="dist/clipboard.min.js"></script>

<script src="https://cdn.rawgit.com/zenorocha/clipboard.js/master/dist

Now, you need to instantiate it using a DOM selector. This selector corresponds to the trigger element(s), for example<button class="btn">.
new Clipboard('.btn');

Internally, we need to fetch all elements that matches with your selector and attach event listeners for each one. But guess what? If you have hundreds of matches, this operation can consume a lot of memory.

For this reason we use event delegation which replaces multiple event listeners with just a single listener. After all, #perfmatters.

Usage

We're living a declarative renaissance, that's why we decided to take advantage of HTML5 data attributes for better usability.

Copy text from another element

A pretty common use case is to copy content from another element. You can do that by adding a data-clipboard-targetattribute in your trigger element.

The value you include on this attribute needs to match another's element selector.




<!-- Target -->
<input id="foo" value="https://github.com/zenorocha/clipboard.js.git">

<!-- Trigger -->
<button class="btn" data-clipboard-target="#foo">
    <img src="assets/clippy.svg" alt="Copy to clipboard">
</button>

Cut text from another element

Additionally, you can define a data-clipboard-action attribute to specify if you want to either copy or cut content.

If you omit this attribute, copy will be used by default.
<!-- Target -->
<textarea id="bar">Mussum ipsum cacilds...</textarea>

<!-- Trigger -->
<button class="btn" data-clipboard-action="cut" data-clipboard-target="#bar">
    Cut to clipboard
</button>

As you may expect, the cut action only works on <input> or<textarea> elements.

Copy text from attribute

Truth is, you don't even need another element to copy its content from. You can just include a data-clipboard-textattribute in your trigger element.
<!-- Trigger -->
<button class="btn" data-clipboard-text="Just because you can doesn't mean you should — clipboard.js">
    Copy to clipboard
</button>

Events

There are cases where you'd like to show some user feedback or capture what has been selected after a copy/cut operation.

That's why we fire custom events such as success and error for you to listen and implement your custom logic.
var clipboard = new Clipboard('.btn');

clipboard.on('success', function(e) {
    console.info('Action:', e.action);
    console.info('Text:', e.text);
    console.info('Trigger:', e.trigger);

    e.clearSelection();
});

clipboard.on('error', function(e) {
    console.error('Action:', e.action);
    console.error('Trigger:', e.trigger);
});

For a live demonstration, just open your console :)

Advanced Usage

If you don't want to modify your HTML, there's a pretty handy imperative API for you to use. All you need to do is declare a function, do your thing, and return a value.

For instance, if you want to dynamically set a target, you'll need to return a Node.
new Clipboard('.btn', {
    target: function(trigger) {
        return trigger.nextElementSibling;
    }
});

If you want to dynamically set a text, you'll return a String.
new Clipboard('.btn', {
    text: function(trigger) {
        return trigger.getAttribute('aria-label');
    }
});

Also, with are working with single page apps, you may want to manage the lifecycle of the DOM more precisely. Here's how you clean up the events and objects that we create.
var clipboard = new Clipboard('.btn');
clipboard.destroy();

Browser Support

This library relies on both Selection and execCommand APIs. The second one is supported in the following browsers.


Chrome 42+


Firefox 41+

 

IE 9+

 

Opera 29+

 

Safari ✘



Although copy/cut operations with execCommand aren't supported on Safari yet (including mobile), it gracefully degrades because Selection is supported.

That means you can show a tooltip saying Copied! whensuccess event is called and Press Ctrl+C to copy when errorevent is called because the text is already selected.

For a live demonstration, open this site on Safari.