element.outerHTML

The outerHTML attribute of the Element DOM interface gets the serialized HTML fragment describing the element including its descendants. It can also be set to replace the element with nodes parsed from the given string.

To only obtain the HTML representation of the contents of an element, or to replace the contents of an element, use the property innerHTML instead.

Syntax

var content = element.outerHTML;

element.outerHTML = htmlString;

Value

Reading the value of outerHTML returns a DOMString containing an HTML serialization of the element and its descendants. Setting the value of outerHTML replaces the element and all of its descendants with a new DOM tree constructed by parsing the specified htmlString.

Exceptions

SyntaxError

An attempt was made to set outerHTML using an HTML string which is not valid.

NoModificationAllowedError

An attempt was made to set outerHTML on an element which is a direct child of a Document, such as Document.documentElement.

Examples

Getting the value of an element's outerHTML property:

// HTML:
// <div id="d"><p>Content</p><p>Further Elaborated</p></div>

d = document.getElementById("d");
console.log(d.outerHTML);

// the string '<div id="d"><p>Content</p><p>Further Elaborated</p></div>'
// is written to the console window

Replacing a node by setting the outerHTML property:

// HTML:
// <div id="container"><div id="d">This is a div.</div></div>

container = document.getElementById("container");
d = document.getElementById("d");
console.log(container.firstChild.nodeName); // logs "DIV"

d.outerHTML = "<p>This paragraph replaced the original div.</p>";
console.log(container.firstChild.nodeName); // logs "P"

// The #d div is no longer part of the document tree,
// the new paragraph replaced it.

Notes

If the element has no parent element, setting its outerHTML property will not change it or its descendants. Many browsers will also throw an exception. For example:

var div = document.createElement("div");
div.outerHTML = "<div class=\"test\">test</div>";
console.log(div.outerHTML); // output: "<div></div>"

Also, while the element will be replaced in the document, the variable whose outerHTML property was set will still hold a reference to the original element:

var p = document.getElementsByTagName("p")[0];
console.log(p.nodeName); // shows: "P"
p.outerHTML = "<div>This div replaced a paragraph.</div>";
console.log(p.nodeName); // still "P";

Specification

Browser compatibilityUpdate compatibility data on GitHub

See also

• Serializing DOM trees into XML or HTML: XMLSerializer
• Parsing XML or HTML into DOM trees: DOMParser
• HTMLElement.outerText