Using jQuery to Change Text of HTML Element

To change text using jQuery, the simplest way is to use the jQuery text() method:

$("#element").text("Changed Text");

If your element will contain html content, then you should use the jQuery html() method.

$("#element").html("Changed <em>Text</em>");

Let’s say I have the following HTML:

<div id="div1">
  <p id="p">Hello!</p>
</div>

If I want to change the text inside the paragraph from “Hello!” to “Good bye!”, I can use the jQuery text() method to do this with the following Javascript code.

$("#p").text("Good bye!");

If you are using WordPress, don’t forget to change the $ to jQuery as below:

jQuery("#p").text("Good bye!");

We can also use the jQuery html() method to change the content of an HTML element.

$("#p").html("Good bye!");

While the text() method is very simple, the html() method gives us the ability to insert html into the element, which gives us more options when styling the content.

Changing the Text on Click Using jQuery

Many times when creating a web page and the user experience, we want to change the content of an element after an interaction with another element on the web page.

To change the text of an element on click using jQuery, we can combine the text() method with a click event.

Let’s say I have the following HTML, and I want to give the user the ability to change the text of the paragraph below from “Welcome!” to “Home”.

<div id="div1">
  <div id="click-me">Click here to update paragraph text.</div>
  <p class="p">Welcome!</p>
</div>

We can utilize both the jQuery click() method and jQuery text() method to change the text from “Welcome!” to “Home”.

Below is the Javascript code which will allow the user to be able to update the text in the paragraph:

$("#click-me").click(function(){
    $(".p").text("Home");
}); 

The final code and output for this example of how to change the text of an HTML element using the jQuery text() method and Javascript is below:

Code Output:

Full Code:

<div class="html-code-output">
<div id="div1">
  <div id="click-me">Click here to update paragraph text.</div>
  <p class="p">Welcome!</p>
</div>
</div>

<script>

$("#click-me").click(function(){
    $(".p").text("Home");
});

</script>

Using the html() Method to Change Text on Click

The jQuery html() method is very useful when it comes to manipulating web pages.

We can use the jQuery html() method to change the html and text of an element.

Let’s say we have the following code and we want to add html content to the span inside of our paragraph.

<div id="div">
  <div id="click-me">Click here to update the text inside the span.</div>
  <p>We are going to add html to this <span id="span-with-text">span with content</span>.</p>
</div>

If we want to make the text “content” bold, we can do this easily utilizing both the jQuery click() method and jQuery html() method.

Below is the Javascript code which will allow the user to be change the text and html content inside of the span.

$("#click-me").click(function(){
    $("span-with-text").html("span with <strong>content</strong>");
});

The final code and output for this example of how to change text of an element using the jQuery html() method and Javascript is below:

Code Output:

Full Code:

<div class="html-code-output">
<div id="div">
  <div id="click-me">Click here to update the text inside the span.</div>
  <p>We are going to add html to this <span id="span-with-text">span with content</span>.</p>
</div>
</div>

<script>

$("#click-me").click(function(){
    $("span-with-text").html("span with <strong>content</strong>");
});

</script>

Hopefully this article has been useful for you to understand how to use jQuery to change the text of an element.