Element: keypress event

Deprecated: This feature is no longer recommended. Though some browsers might still support it, it may have already been removed from the relevant web standards, may be in the process of being dropped, or may only be kept for compatibility purposes. Avoid using it, and update existing code if possible; see the compatibility table at the bottom of this page to guide your decision. Be aware that this feature may cease to work at any time.

The keypress event is fired when a key that produces a character value is pressed down.

Examples of keys that produce a character value are alphabetic, numeric, and punctuation keys. Examples of keys that don't produce a character value are modifier keys such as Alt, Shift, Ctrl, or Meta.

Warning: Since this event has been deprecated, you should use beforeinput or keydown instead.

Interface	`KeyboardEvent`
Bubbles	Yes
Cancelable	Yes
Default Action	Varies: `keypress` event; launch text composition system; `blur` and `focus` events; `DOMActivate` event; other event

Examples

addEventListener keypress example

This example logs the KeyboardEvent.code value whenever you press a key after focussing the <input> element.

<div>
  <label for="sample">Focus the input and type something:</label>
  <input type="text" name="text" id="sample">
</div>
<p id="log"></p>

const log = document.getElementById('log');
const input = document.querySelector('input');

input.addEventListener('keypress', logKey);

function logKey(e) {
  log.textContent += ` ${e.code}`;
}

onkeypress equivalent

input.onkeypress = logKey;

Specifications

Specification
UI Events # event-type-keypress

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser