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Paste an image from the clipboard

Written byPhuoc Nguyen
Created
18 Mar, 2020
Category
Level 2 — Intermediate
js
// Handle the `paste` event
document.addEventListener('paste', function (evt) {
// Get the data of clipboard
const clipboardItems = evt.clipboardData.items;
const items = [].slice.call(clipboardItems).filter(function (item) {
// Filter the image items only
return item.type.indexOf('image') !== -1;
});
if (items.length === 0) {
return;
}

const item = items[0];
// Get the blob of image
const blob = item.getAsFile();
});
From the image blob, we can preview it as you see in the live example below:
js
// Assume that we have an `img` element
// <img id="preview" />

const imageEle = document.getElementById('preview');
imageEle.src = URL.createObjectURL(blob);
or upload it to the server with an Ajax request:
js
// Create a new FormData
const formData = new FormData();
formData.append('image', blob, 'filename');

// Create new Ajax request
const req = new XMLHttpRequest();
req.open('POST', '/path/to/back-end', true);

// Handle the events
req.onload = function () {
if (req.status >= 200 && req.status < 400) {
const res = req.responseText;
// Do something with the response
// ...
}
};

// Send it
req.send(formData);

Demo

See also

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