I want to be able to write some text in a textarea and click a button to have the browser download a .txt file with the text I wrote in my textarea.

I have no idea how to go about this. What should I try? Is there any way I cam have it downloaded to me without using a database or a server?

I want to be able to write some text in a textarea and click a button to have the browser download a .txt file with the text I wrote in my textarea.

I have no idea how to go about this. What should I try? Is there any way I cam have it downloaded to me without using a database or a server?

• javascript
• html
• save

• 3 get text from textarea frist. and follow like here stackoverflow./questions/45789444/… – Hyunjune Kim Commented Dec 4, 2020 at 3:24

3 Answers 3

To get data from text area:

var textcontent = document.getElementById("textareaID").value;

To download as txt file:

var downloadableLink = document.createElement('a');
downloadableLink.setAttribute('href', 'data:text/plain;charset=utf-8,' + encodeURIComponent(textcontent));
downloadableLink.download = "myFile" + ".txt";
document.body.appendChild(downloadableLink);
downloadableLink.click();
document.body.removeChild(downloadableLink);

You can create an input field with <textarea> inside it.

Example: HTML

<h2>Create .txt file</h2>
<div>
   <label for="fname">File name (without .txt):</label>
   <br>
   <input type="text" id="fname" name="fname"><br><br>
   <label for="fcontent">File Content:</label>
   <br>
   <textarea id="fcontent" name="w3review" rows="4" cols="50"></textarea>
   <br>
   <button id="create">Create File</button>
   <a download="info.txt" id="downloadlink" style="display: none">Download Here</a>
</div>

Javascript:

(function() {
    var textFile = null,
        makeTextFile = function(text) {
            var data = new Blob([text], {
                type: 'text/plain'
            });

            if (textFile !== null) {
                window.URL.revokeObjectURL(textFile);
            }

            textFile = window.URL.createObjectURL(data);

            return textFile;
        };


    var create = document.getElementById('create');
    var fileContent = document.getElementById("fcontent");

    create.addEventListener('click', function() {
        const fileName = document.getElementById("fname").value;
        document.getElementById("downloadlink").setAttribute("download", fileName);
        var link = document.getElementById('downloadlink');
        link.href = makeTextFile(fileContent.value);
        link.style.display = 'block';
    }, false);
})();

You can see the live demo here.

NOTE: If you want to make an HTML file be the default instead of a .txt file, you can do that by changing the type: 'text/plain' in the JavaScript file into type: 'text/html'

See the working example on JSFiddler

Javascript/JQuery

$('#mybutton').click(function(){
     var data = $('#mytextarea').val();
     this.href = "data:text/plain;charset=UTF-8,"  + encodeURIComponent(data);
});

HTML

<textarea id="mytextarea"></textarea>
<a id="mybutton" href="" download="output.txt">Export to .txt</a>