Text.splitText()

The Text.splitText() method breaks the Text node into two nodes at the specified offset, keeping both nodes in the tree as siblings.

After the split, the current node contains all the content up to the specified offset point, and a newly created node of the same type contains the remaining text. The newly created node is returned to the caller. If the original node had a parent, the new node is inserted as the next sibling of the original node. If the offset is equal to the length of the original node, the newly created node has no data.

Separated text nodes can be concatenated using the Node.normalize() method.

Syntax

newNode = textNode.splitText(offset)

Parameters

offset: The index immediately before which to break the text node.

Return value

Returns a newly created Text node that contains the text after the specified offset point.

Exceptions thrown

A DOMException with a value of INDEX_SIZE_ERR is thrown if the specified offset is negative or is greater than the number of 16-bit units in the node's text; a DOMException with a value of NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR is thrown if the node is read-only.

Example

In this example, the text of a <p> is split into two text nodes, and a <u> is inserted between them.

HTML

<p>foobar</p>

JavaScript

const p = document.querySelector('p');

// Get contents of <p> as a text node
const foobar = p.firstChild;

// Split 'foobar' into two text nodes, 'foo' and 'bar',
// and save 'bar' as a const
const bar = foobar.splitText(3);

// Create a <u> element containing ' new content '
const u = document.createElement('u');
u.appendChild(document.createTextNode(' new content '));

// Add <u> before 'bar'
p.insertBefore(u, bar);

// The result is: <p>foo<u> new content </u>bar</p>

Result

Specifications

Specification
DOM Standard (DOM) # ref-for-dom-text-splittext①

Browser compatibility

	Desktop						Mobile
	Chrome	Edge	Firefox	Internet Explorer	Opera	Safari	WebView Android	Chrome Android	Firefox for Android	Opera Android	Safari on IOS	Samsung Internet
`splitText`	1 Before Chrome 30, the `offset` argument was optional.	12	1	5	Yes Before Opera 17, the `offset` argument was optional.	1 The `offset` argument is optional.	Yes Before version 4.4, the `offset` argument was optional.	18 Before Chrome 30, the `offset` argument was optional.	4	Yes Before Opera 17, the `offset` argument was optional.	1 The `offset` argument is optional.	1.0 Before Samsung Internet 2.0, the `offset` argument was optional.