explaingit

zenorocha/clipboard.js

★ 34,158JavaScriptAudience · developerComplexity · 2/5MaintainedLicenseSetup · easy

TLDR

A lightweight JavaScript library that adds copy-to-clipboard functionality to web pages without Flash or jQuery dependencies.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((clipboard.js))
    What it does
      Copy text to clipboard
      No Flash needed
      3KB compressed
    How it works
      Selection API
      execCommand
      Event delegation
    Use cases
      Documentation sites
      Code editors
      Dashboards
    Tech stack
      JavaScript
      Browser APIs
      npm or CDN

Things people build with this

USE CASE 1

Add a copy button to code snippets on documentation sites so users can quickly grab examples.

USE CASE 2

Let users copy API keys or tokens from a dashboard with a single click.

USE CASE 3

Enable one-click copying of URLs or formatted text in web applications.

USE CASE 4

Build code editors or IDEs where users frequently copy code blocks.

Tech stack

JavaScriptSelection APIexecCommand

Getting it running

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min
MIT license allows free use for any purpose, including commercial, as long as you include the copyright notice.

In plain English

clipboard.js is a tiny JavaScript library that gives web developers a clean, straightforward way to add "copy to clipboard" functionality to any button or element on a webpage, without needing Flash, jQuery, or any other heavy dependency. It weighs just 3 kilobytes when compressed, making it essentially invisible in terms of page size. The problem it solves is a surprisingly annoying one. For years, copying text programmatically in a browser required either Adobe Flash or complex workarounds. clipboard.js eliminates all of that by using modern browser APIs: it relies on the browser's built-in Selection API (to select the text) and execCommand (to copy it), which are supported across all modern browsers including Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. Using it is deliberately simple. You attach a special data attribute to an HTML button, for example, data-clipboard-target pointing to the ID of a text input field, and clipboard.js handles the rest when the user clicks that button. You can also embed the text to copy directly in the button's attribute without needing a separate target element at all. The library uses event delegation internally, meaning even if you have hundreds of copy buttons on a page, only one event listener is registered, keeping memory usage low. For developers who need more control, it also offers a JavaScript API where you can dynamically compute what text gets copied or what element is targeted. It fires success and error events so you can show "Copied!" feedback to the user in whatever style fits your design. You would use clipboard.js whenever you are building a documentation site, a code editor, a dashboard, or any web interface where users frequently need to copy snippets of text, API keys, code examples, or URLs with a single click. It is a pure JavaScript library installable via npm or a CDN script tag, requiring no build setup.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
Show me how to add a copy-to-clipboard button to a code snippet using clipboard.js.
Prompt 2
How do I use clipboard.js to copy text from a form input when a button is clicked?
Prompt 3
Can you set up clipboard.js with success and error event handlers to show feedback to the user?
Prompt 4
How do I dynamically determine what text gets copied using clipboard.js's JavaScript API?
Prompt 5
What's the simplest way to install and use clipboard.js on a webpage without a build tool?
Open on GitHub → Explain another repo

Generated 2026-05-18 · Model: sonnet-4-6 · Verify against the repo before relying on details.