Stop cut and paste from textbox

Does anybody know how to stop people cutting and pasting from a text box.
Is it even a javascript thing?

I have a page where I ask users to enter their email address twice - 2nd time to verify no typing mistakes. At the moment they can just cut and paste from one to the other. This makes the whole thing pointless so I would like to stop the ability to do this on the page.

Is it possible and how?

Thank you in advance.

Use a key event (onkeydown, onkeypress, onkeyup) and two counters. Then make sure the counters are both positive numbers before submitting (they won't be equal if the user types a backspace or delete). I'm fairly certain the paste will not increment the counters since it isn't a key event.

Thanks for that,

I may have to implement something like that if I can't find what I'm after. It will enable me to check that they didn't cut and paste the address, but what I was after was something that didn't let them do it at all.

I am sure (as sure as I can be) that once I went on a website which wouldn't allow me to highlight the text I had input into the box - so I couldn't copy it and had to re-type it.

That's what I am really after! But if it's not possible I think your suggestion is a workaround.

thanks for the help.

<input onselect="this.blur()" ...

Thanks, but that didn't work either. My text box code is like this..


<input type="text" name="address" size="25" maxlength="40" onselect="this.blur()">

and I can cut and paste using mouse or keyboard - even drag and drop!

Im using IE explorer 6 browser. Could this be part of the problem?

Let's see, let me count the ways to copy and paste (and this is only Windows!)

1) Ctrl + C | Ctrl + V
2) Ctrl + Ins | Shift + Ins
3) Right-click >> Copy | Right-click >> Paste
4) Select text | Ctrl-drag'n'drop
5) Edit >> Copy | Edit >> Paste

You can't directly prevent #5, and you can possibly do something about 1-4, but not without a lot of headache.

Personally, I don't think it's worth the effort.

If you MUST have a solution, then I can only offer this IE5+ fix

<input type="text" onpaste="event.returnValue=false" ondrop="event.returnValue=false"/>

However, you'll likely make people think you're site is busted and just piss them off. I don't recommend this, but there it is.

And, of course, Mozilla et al., Opera, etc won't be affected by this fix.

damn IE strikes again.... add this:

<input onselect="this.blur()" onselectstart="return false;" .....

Thanks all for your help.

In the end Vladdy it did work - on IE 6.0.:thumbsup:


I won't even bother to check other browsers as the weekend is here.

But next week.......