Document

Baseline Widely available *

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since ⁨July 2015⁩.

* Some parts of this feature may have varying levels of support.

The Document interface represents any web page loaded in the browser and serves as an entry point into the web page's content, which is the DOM tree.

The DOM tree includes elements such as <body> and <table>, among many others. It provides functionality globally to the document, like how to obtain the page's URL and create new elements in the document.

The Document interface describes the common properties and methods for any kind of document. Depending on the document's type (e.g., HTML, XML, SVG, …), a larger API is available: HTML documents, served with the "text/html" content type, also implement the HTMLDocument interface, whereas XML and SVG documents implement the XMLDocument interface.

Constructor

Document(): Creates a new Document object.

Instance properties

This interface also inherits from the Node and EventTarget interfaces.

Document.activeElement Read only: Returns the Element that currently has focus.
Document.adoptedStyleSheets: Add an array of constructed stylesheets to be used by the document. These stylesheets may also be shared with shadow DOM subtrees of the same document.
Document.body: Returns the <body> or <frameset> node of the current document.
Document.characterSet Read only: Returns the character set being used by the document.
Document.childElementCount Read only: Returns the number of child elements of the current document.
Document.children Read only: Returns the child elements of the current document.
Document.compatMode Read only: Indicates whether the document is rendered in quirks or strict mode.
Document.contentType Read only: Returns the Content-Type from the MIME Header of the current document.
Document.currentScript Read only: Returns the <script> element whose script is currently being processed and isn't a JavaScript module.
Document.doctype Read only: Returns the Document Type Definition (DTD) of the current document.
Document.documentElement Read only: Returns the Element that is a direct child of the document. For HTML documents, this is normally the HTMLHtmlElement object representing the document's <html> element.
Document.documentURI Read only: Returns the document location as a string.
Document.embeds Read only: Returns an HTMLCollection of the embedded <embed> elements in the document.
Document.featurePolicy Experimental Read only: Returns the FeaturePolicy interface with the feature policies applied to the document.
Document.firstElementChild Read only: Returns the first child element of the current document.
Document.fonts: Returns the FontFaceSet interface of the current document.
Document.forms Read only: Returns an HTMLCollection of the <form> elements in the document.
Document.fragmentDirective Read only: Returns the FragmentDirective for the current document.
Document.fullscreenElement Read only: The element that's currently in full screen mode for this document.
Document.head Read only: Returns the <head> element of the current document.
Document.hidden Read only: Returns a Boolean value indicating if the page is considered hidden or not.
Document.images Read only: Returns an HTMLCollection of the images in the document.
Document.implementation Read only: Returns the DOM implementation associated with the current document.
Document.lastElementChild Read only: Returns the last child element of the current document.
Document.links Read only: Returns an HTMLCollection of the hyperlinks in the document.
Document.pictureInPictureElement Read only: Returns the Element currently being presented in picture-in-picture mode in this document.
Document.pictureInPictureEnabled Read only: Returns true if the picture-in-picture feature is enabled.
Document.plugins Read only: Returns an HTMLCollection of the available plugins.
Document.pointerLockElement Read only: Returns the element set as the target for mouse events while the pointer is locked. null if lock is pending, pointer is unlocked, or if the target is in another document.
Document.prerendering Read only Experimental: Returns a boolean that indicates whether the document is currently in the process of prerendering, as initiated via the Speculation Rules API.
Document.scripts Read only: Returns an HTMLCollection of the <script> elements in the document.
Document.scrollingElement Read only: Returns a reference to the Element that scrolls the document.
Document.styleSheets Read only: Returns a StyleSheetList of CSSStyleSheet objects for stylesheets explicitly linked into, or embedded in a document.
Document.timeline Read only: Returns timeline as a special instance of DocumentTimeline that is automatically created on page load.
Document.visibilityState Read only: Returns a string denoting the visibility state of the document. Possible values are visible, hidden, and unloaded.

Extensions for HTMLDocument

The Document interface for HTML documents inherits from the HTMLDocument interface or is extended for such documents.

Document.cookie

Returns a semicolon-separated list of the cookies for that document or sets a single cookie.

Document.defaultView Read only

Returns a reference to the window object.

Document.designMode

Gets/sets the ability to edit the whole document.

Document.dir

Gets/sets directionality (rtl/ltr) of the document.

Document.fullscreenEnabled Read only

Indicates whether fullscreen mode is available.

Document.lastModified Read only

Returns the date on which the document was last modified.

Document.location Read only

Returns the URI of the current document.

Document.readyState Read only

Returns loading status of the document.

Document.referrer Read only

Returns the URI of the page that linked to this page.

Document.title

Sets or gets the title of the current document.

Document.URL Read only

Returns the document location as a string.

Named properties

Some elements in the document are also exposed as properties:

For each <embed>, <form>, <iframe>, <img>, and <object> element, its name (if non-empty) is exposed. For example, if the document contains <form name="my_form">, then document["my_form"] (and its equivalent document.my_form) returns a reference to that element.
For each <object> element, its id (if non-empty) is exposed.
For each <img> element with non-empty name, its id (if non-empty) is exposed.

If a property corresponds to a single element, that element is directly returned. If that single element is an iframe, then its contentWindow is returned instead. If the property corresponds to multiple elements, then an HTMLCollection is returned containing all of them.

Deprecated properties

Document.alinkColor Deprecated: Returns or sets the color of active links in the document body.
Document.all Deprecated: Provides access to all elements in the document — it returns an HTMLAllCollection rooted at the document node. This is a legacy, non-standard property and should not be used.
Document.anchors Deprecated Read only: Returns a list of all of the anchors in the document.
Document.applets Deprecated Read only: Returns an empty HTMLCollection. Legacy property that used to return the list of applets within a document.
Document.bgColor Deprecated: Gets/sets the background color of the current document.
Document.charset Deprecated Read only: Alias of Document.characterSet. Use this property instead.
Document.domain Deprecated: Gets/sets the domain of the current document.
Document.fgColor Deprecated: Gets/sets the foreground color, or text color, of the current document.
Document.fullscreen Deprecated: Returns true when the document is in fullscreen mode.
Document.inputEncoding Deprecated Read only: Alias of Document.characterSet. Use this property instead.
Document.lastStyleSheetSet Deprecated Read only Non-standard: Returns the name of the style sheet set that was last enabled. Has the value null until the style sheet is changed by setting the value of selectedStyleSheetSet.
Document.linkColor Deprecated: Gets/sets the color of hyperlinks in the document.
Document.preferredStyleSheetSet Deprecated Read only Non-standard: Returns the preferred style sheet set as specified by the page author.
Document.rootElement Deprecated: Like Document.documentElement, but only for <svg> root elements. Use this property instead.
Document.selectedStyleSheetSet Deprecated Non-standard: Returns which style sheet set is currently in use.
Document.styleSheetSets Deprecated Read only Non-standard: Returns a list of the style sheet sets available on the document.
Document.vlinkColor Deprecated: Gets/sets the color of visited hyperlinks.
Document.xmlEncoding Deprecated: Returns the encoding as determined by the XML declaration.
Document.xmlStandalone Deprecated: Returns true if the XML declaration specifies the document to be standalone (e.g., An external part of the DTD affects the document's content), else false.
Document.xmlVersion Deprecated: Returns the version number as specified in the XML declaration or "1.0" if the declaration is absent.

Instance methods

This interface also inherits from the Node and EventTarget interfaces.

Document.adoptNode(): Adopt node from an external document.
Document.append(): Inserts a set of Node objects or strings after the last child of the document.
Document.ariaNotify() Experimental Non-standard: Specifies that a given string of text should be announced by a screen reader.
Document.browsingTopics() Experimental Non-standard: Returns a promise that fulfills with an array of objects representing the top topics for the user, one from each of the last three epochs. By default, the method also causes the browser to record the current page visit as observed by the caller, so the page's hostname can later be used in topics calculation. See the Topics API for more details.
Document.captureEvents() Deprecated: See Window.captureEvents.
Document.caretPositionFromPoint(): Returns a CaretPosition object containing the DOM node containing the caret, and caret's character offset within that node.
Document.caretRangeFromPoint() Non-standard: Gets a Range object for the document fragment under the specified coordinates.
Document.createAttribute(): Creates a new Attr object and returns it.
Document.createAttributeNS(): Creates a new attribute node in a given namespace and returns it.
Document.createCDATASection(): Creates a new CDATA node and returns it.
Document.createComment(): Creates a new comment node and returns it.
Document.createDocumentFragment(): Creates a new document fragment.
Document.createElement(): Creates a new element with the given tag name.
Document.createElementNS(): Creates a new element with the given tag name and namespace URI.
Document.createEvent() Deprecated: Creates an event object.
Document.createNodeIterator(): Creates a NodeIterator object.
Document.createProcessingInstruction(): Creates a new ProcessingInstruction object.
Document.createRange(): Creates a Range object.
Document.createTextNode(): Creates a text node.
Document.createTouch() Deprecated Non-standard: Creates a Touch object.
Document.createTouchList() Deprecated Non-standard: Creates a TouchList object.
Document.createTreeWalker(): Creates a TreeWalker object.
Document.elementFromPoint(): Returns the topmost element at the specified coordinates.
Document.elementsFromPoint(): Returns an array of all elements at the specified coordinates.
Document.enableStyleSheetsForSet() Deprecated Non-standard: Enables the style sheets for the specified style sheet set.
Document.exitFullscreen(): Stops document's fullscreen element from being displayed fullscreen.
Document.exitPictureInPicture(): Remove the video from the floating picture-in-picture window back to its original container.
Document.exitPointerLock(): Release the pointer lock.
Document.getAnimations(): Returns an array of all Animation objects currently in effect, whose target elements are descendants of the document.
Document.getBoxQuads() Experimental: Returns a list of DOMQuad objects representing the CSS fragments of the node.
Document.getElementById(): Returns an object reference to the identified element.
Document.getElementsByClassName(): Returns a list of elements with the given class name.
Document.getElementsByTagName(): Returns a list of elements with the given tag name.
Document.getElementsByTagNameNS(): Returns a list of elements with the given tag name and namespace.
Document.getSelection(): Returns a Selection object representing the range of text selected by the user, or the current position of the caret.
Document.hasStorageAccess(): Returns a Promise that resolves with a boolean value indicating whether the document has access to unpartitioned cookies.
Document.hasUnpartitionedCookieAccess(): New name for Document.hasStorageAccess().
Document.importNode(): Returns a clone of a node from an external document.
Document.moveBefore(): Moves a given Node inside the Document DOM node as a direct child, before a given reference node, without removing and then inserting the node.
Document.mozSetImageElement() Non-standard: Allows you to change the element being used as the background image for a specified element ID.
Document.prepend(): Inserts a set of Node objects or strings before the first child of the document.
Document.querySelector(): Returns the first Element node within the document, in document order, that matches the specified selectors.
Document.querySelectorAll(): Returns a list of all the Element nodes within the document that match the specified selectors.
Document.releaseCapture() Non-standard: Releases the current mouse capture if it's on an element in this document.
Document.releaseEvents() Deprecated: See Window.releaseEvents().
Document.replaceChildren(): Replaces the existing children of a document with a specified new set of children.
Document.requestStorageAccess(): Allows a document loaded in a third-party context (i.e., embedded in an <iframe>) to request access to unpartitioned cookies, in cases where user agents by default block access to unpartitioned cookies by sites loaded in a third-party context to improve privacy.
Document.requestStorageAccessFor() Experimental: Allows top-level sites to request third-party cookie access on behalf of embedded content originating from another site in the same related website set.
Document.startViewTransition(): Starts a new view transition and returns a ViewTransition object to represent it.

The Document interface is extended with the XPathEvaluator interface:

Document.createExpression(): Compiles an XPathExpression which can then be used for (repeated) evaluations.
Document.createNSResolver() Deprecated: Returns the input node as-is.
Document.evaluate(): Evaluates an XPath expression.

Extension for HTML documents

The Document interface for HTML documents inherit from the HTMLDocument interface or is extended for such documents:

Document.clear() Deprecated: This method does nothing.
Document.close(): Closes a document stream for writing.
Document.execCommand() Deprecated: On an editable document, executes a formatting command.
Document.getElementsByName(): Returns a list of elements with the given name.
Document.hasFocus(): Returns true if the focus is currently located anywhere inside the specified document.
Document.open(): Opens a document stream for writing.
Document.queryCommandEnabled() Deprecated Non-standard: Returns true if the formatting command can be executed on the current range.
Document.queryCommandIndeterm() Deprecated: Returns true if the formatting command is in an indeterminate state on the current range.
Document.queryCommandState() Deprecated Non-standard: Returns true if the formatting command has been executed on the current range.
Document.queryCommandSupported() Deprecated Non-standard: Returns true if the formatting command is supported on the current range.
Document.queryCommandValue() Deprecated: Returns the current value of the current range for a formatting command.
Document.write() Deprecated: Writes text in a document.
Document.writeln() Deprecated: Writes a line of text in a document.

Static methods

This interface also inherits from the Node and EventTarget interfaces.

Document.parseHTML(): Creates a new Document object from a string of HTML in an XSS-safe manner with sanitization.
Document.parseHTMLUnsafe(): Creates a new Document object from a string of HTML without performing sanitization. The string may contain declarative shadow roots.

Events

Listen to these events using addEventListener() or by assigning an event listener to the oneventname property of this interface. In addition to the events listed below, many events can bubble from nodes contained in the document tree.

afterscriptexecute Non-standard Deprecated: Fired when a static <script> element finishes executing its script
beforescriptexecute Non-standard Deprecated: Fired when a static <script> is about to start executing.
prerenderingchange Experimental: Fired on a prerendered document when it is activated (i.e., the user views the page).
securitypolicyviolation: Fired when a content security policy is violated.
visibilitychange: Fired when the content of a tab has become visible or has been hidden.

Fullscreen events

fullscreenchange: Fired when the Document transitions into or out of fullscreen mode.
fullscreenerror: Fired if an error occurs while attempting to switch into or out of fullscreen mode.

Load & unload events

DOMContentLoaded: Fired when the document has been completely loaded and parsed, without waiting for stylesheets, images, and subframes to finish loading.
readystatechange: Fired when the readyState attribute of a document has changed.

Pointer lock events

pointerlockchange: Fired when the pointer is locked/unlocked.
pointerlockerror: Fired when locking the pointer failed.

Scroll events

scroll: Fired when the document view or an element has been scrolled.
scrollend: Fired when the document view or an element has completed scrolling.
scrollsnapchange Experimental: Fired on the scroll container at the end of a scrolling operation when a new scroll snap target has been selected.
scrollsnapchanging Experimental: Fired on the scroll container when the browser determines a new scroll snap target is pending, i.e., it will be selected when the current scroll gesture ends.

Selection events

selectionchange: Fired when the current text selection on a document is changed.

Bubbled events

Not all events that bubble can reach the Document object. Only the following do and can be listened for on the Document object:

Specifications

Specification
DOM # interface-document
HTML # the-document-object
CSSOM View Module # extensions-to-the-document-interface
Pointer Lock 2.0 # extensions-to-the-document-interface
Selection API # extensions-to-document-interface

Browser compatibility

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This page was last modified on ⁨Oct 13, 2025⁩ by MDN contributors.

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