Javascript trick for 'paste as plain text` in execCommand

Solution 1:

It will intercept the paste event, cancel the paste, and manually insert the text representation of the clipboard:
http://jsfiddle.net/HBEzc/. This should be the most reliable:

• It catches all kinds of pasting (Ctrl+V, context menu, etc.)
• It allows you to get the clipboard data directly as text, so you don't have to do ugly hacks to replace HTML.

I'm not sure of cross-browser support, though.

editor.addEventListener("paste", function(e) {
    // cancel paste
    e.preventDefault();

    // get text representation of clipboard
    var text = (e.originalEvent || e).clipboardData.getData('text/plain');

    // insert text manually
    document.execCommand("insertHTML", false, text);
});

Solution 2:

I couldn't get the accepted answer here to work in IE so I did some scouting around and came to this answer which works in IE11 and the latest versions of Chrome and Firefox.

$('[contenteditable]').on('paste', function(e) {
    e.preventDefault();
    var text = '';
    if (e.clipboardData || e.originalEvent.clipboardData) {
      text = (e.originalEvent || e).clipboardData.getData('text/plain');
    } else if (window.clipboardData) {
      text = window.clipboardData.getData('Text');
    }
    if (document.queryCommandSupported('insertText')) {
      document.execCommand('insertText', false, text);
    } else {
      document.execCommand('paste', false, text);
    }
});

Solution 3:

A close solution as pimvdb. But it's working of FF, Chrome and IE 9:

editor.addEventListener("paste", function(e) {
    e.preventDefault();

    if (e.clipboardData) {
        content = (e.originalEvent || e).clipboardData.getData('text/plain');

        document.execCommand('insertText', false, content);
    }
    else if (window.clipboardData) {
        content = window.clipboardData.getData('Text');

        document.selection.createRange().pasteHTML(content);
    }   
});

Solution 4:

Of course the question is already answered and the topic very old but I want to provide my solution as it is simple an clean:

This is inside my paste-event on my contenteditable-div.

var text = '';
var that = $(this);

if (e.clipboardData)
    text = e.clipboardData.getData('text/plain');
else if (window.clipboardData)
    text = window.clipboardData.getData('Text');
else if (e.originalEvent.clipboardData)
    text = $('<div></div>').text(e.originalEvent.clipboardData.getData('text'));

if (document.queryCommandSupported('insertText')) {
    document.execCommand('insertHTML', false, $(text).html());
    return false;
}
else { // IE > 7
    that.find('*').each(function () {
         $(this).addClass('within');
    });

    setTimeout(function () {
          // nochmal alle durchlaufen
          that.find('*').each(function () {
               // wenn das element keine klasse 'within' hat, dann unwrap
               // http://api.jquery.com/unwrap/
               $(this).not('.within').contents().unwrap();
          });
    }, 1);
}

The else-part is from another SO-post I couldn't find anymore...

UPDATE 19.11.2014: The other SO-post