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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-11T17:15:06+00:00

The script below will replace selected word in a textarea. But it only works

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The script below will replace selected word in a textarea. But it only works on IE. Any idea how to make it work on Firefox? (The problem seems to lie in (document.all)? document.selection.createRange() : document.getSelection();)

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
    <!--//
    var seltext = null;
    var repltext = null;
    function replaceit() 
    {
        seltext = (document.all)? document.selection.createRange() : document.getSelection();
        var selit = (document.all)? document.selection.createRange().text : document.getSelection();
        if (selit.length>=1){
            if (seltext) {
                repltext= prompt('Please enter the word to replace:', ' '); 
                if ((repltext==' ')||(repltext==null)) repltext=seltext.text;
                seltext.text = repltext;
                window.focus()
            }
        }
    }
    //-->
</SCRIPT>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
    <form name="f">
        <textarea cols='40' rows='10' name='msg'></textarea>

        <input type="button" name="b" value="Replace" onClick="replaceit();">
    </form>
</BODY>
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    OK, so document.getSelection() returns a string in FF. String::text does not exist. So you can’t set that.

    The basc idea of what you need to do (and it’ll work in both browsers):

    Get the text area by its id–you’ll need to set an id attribute on the textarea. Get the starting and ending positions of the selection. Then take three substrings: 0->start, start->end, end->string.length. Replace the middle substring with whatever they put in the prompt. Set the text of the textarea to your newly formed string.

    The exact how is up to you, I just gave you a flavor of the procedure.

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