
contenteditable
attribute in HTML lets you make any element editable so users can change its content directly in the browser. It’s simple to use but has some important details to consider for practical use.

What contenteditable
does
<p>By adding contenteditable="true"
to an HTML element, you turn it into an editable area. For example:<div contenteditable="true"> Edit this text! </div><p>Now, users can click on that
<div>
and type, delete, or format text right in the browser — no special editor needed.
<p>
, <span>
, <section>
, or <article>
can become editable this way, which makes it very flexible.Common use cases and examples
<p>You’ll often seecontenteditable
used in:
- <strong>Rich text editors (like comment boxes or email composers)
- <strong>Note-taking apps
- <strong>In-place editing on dashboards or CMS interfaces
<article contenteditable="true" style="max-width:90%"> <h3>My editable article</h3> <p>Start typing to edit this content.</p> </article><p>This gives users a styled, editable block that feels more like a document.
Key things to keep in mind
<p>Whilecontenteditable
is easy to add, there are a few gotchas:- <p><strong>It can produce messy HTML
When users format text (bold, italic, etc.), the browser generates inline HTML (like<strong>
or<em>
), and sometimes nested or inconsistent markup. If you’re saving the content, you may need to clean it up. - <p><strong>Not all values are valid
Usecontenteditable="true"
orcontenteditable="false"
. You can also use the bare attribute (likecontenteditable
) which acts like"true"
. Other values like"yes"
won’t work reliably. - <p><strong>Be careful with user input
Since users can insert HTML (depending on the browser), treat the content like any user input — sanitize it before saving or displaying elsewhere to avoid XSS attacks. - <p><strong>Accessibility considerations
Screen readers recognizecontenteditable
, but you should addrole="textbox"
and possibly ARIA labels for clarity:<div contenteditable="true" role="textbox" aria-label="Editable content"> </div>
Getting and saving the content
<p>To retrieve the edited content with JavaScript:const editableDiv = document.querySelector('[contenteditable]'); console.log(editableDiv.innerHTML); // Gets the HTML content<p>Use
.innerHTML
to preserve formatting, or .textContent
if you only want plain text.<p>If you're building a simple editor, you might listen for input changes:editableDiv.addEventListener('input', function() { console.log('Content changed:', this.innerHTML); });<p>This lets you auto-save or update previews in real time. <p>Basically,
contenteditable
is powerful and easy to start with — just add the attribute. But handling the output cleanly and securely takes a bit more care.The above is the detailed content of How to use the contenteditable attribute?. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!

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