HTML DOM Document body
Examples
Get the HTML content of a document:
const myBody = document.body.innerHTML;
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Change the background color of a document:
document.body.style.backgroundColor = "yellow";
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Change the <body> of a document (overwrite all existing content):
document.body.innerHTML = "Some new HTML content";
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More examples below.
Description
The body property sets or returns a document's <body> element.
Warning
Setting the body property overwrites all elements in the document's <body>.
Note
The difference between document.body and document.documentElement:
document.body returns the <body> element.
document.documentElement returns the <html> element.
See Also:
Syntax
Return the body property:
document.body
Set the body property:
document.body = newContent
Property Values
| Value | Description |
| newContent | The new content for the <body> element. |
Return Value
| Type | Description |
| Object | The body element of the document. |
More Examples
Create a <p> element and append it to the document's body:
const para = document.createElement("p");
const node = document.createTextNode("This is a paragraph.");
para.appendChild(node);
document.body.appendChild(para);
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Browser Support
document.body is a DOM Level 1 (1998) feature.
It is fully supported in all browsers:
| Chrome | Edge | Firefox | Safari | Opera | IE |
| Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | 9-11 |
