Document.caretRangeFromPoint()

Non-standard

This feature is non-standard and is not on a standards track. Do not use it on production sites facing the Web: it will not work for every user. There may also be large incompatibilities between implementations and the behavior may change in the future.

The caretRangeFromPoint() method of the Document interface returns a Range object for the document fragment under the specified coordinates.

Syntax

var range = document.caretRangeFromPoint(float x, float y);

Parameters

x
A horizontal position within the current viewport.
y
A vertical position within the current viewport.

Returns

One of the following:

  • A Range.
  • Null, if x or y are negative, outside viewport, or there is no text entry node.

Example

Click anywhere in the Demo paragraph below to insert a line break at the point where you click. The code for it is below the demo.

Demo

The code below first checks for document.caretRangeFromPoint support, but if the browser doesn’t support that, the code then checks for document.caretPositionFromPoint, and uses that instead.

JavaScript

function insertBreakAtPoint(e) {
  let range;
  let textNode;
  let offset;

  if (document.caretRangeFromPoint) {
    range = document.caretRangeFromPoint(e.clientX, e.clientY);
    textNode = range.startContainer;
    offset = range.startOffset;
  } else if (document.caretPositionFromPoint) {
    range = document.caretPositionFromPoint(e.clientX, e.clientY);
    textNode = range.offsetNode;
    offset = range.offset;
  } else {
    document.body.textContent = "[This browser supports neither"
      + " document.caretRangeFromPoint"
      + " nor document.caretPositionFromPoint.]";
    return;
  }
  // Only split TEXT_NODEs
  if (textNode && textNode.nodeType == 3) {
    let replacement = textNode.splitText(offset);
    let br = document.createElement('br');
    textNode.parentNode.insertBefore(br, replacement);
  }
}

let paragraphs = document.getElementsByTagName("p");
for (let i = 0; i < paragraphs.length; i++) {
  paragraphs[i].addEventListener('click', insertBreakAtPoint, false);
}

HTML

<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr,
sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat,
sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum.
Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.</p>

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser