Skip to content

How to use insertAdjacentHTML

insertAdjacentHTML is a very cool DOM method we can call on any DOM element to add new content to a page.

It is a nice and flexible way to insert new content.

The method is called on an element and accepts 2 parameters: the position, and a string containing HTML.

Here’s an example:

const item = `<div>
    test
  </div>
`

document.querySelector('#container').insertAdjacentHTML('afterend', item)

Notice the afterend string.

This represents the position we’re going to add the HTML into the container.

We have 4 possible positions:

Here’s how we would add a new item to a list:

document.querySelector('ul').insertAdjacentHTML('beforeend', '<li>item</li>')

→ I wrote 17 books to help you become a better developer:

  • C Handbook
  • Command Line Handbook
  • CSS Handbook
  • Express Handbook
  • Git Cheat Sheet
  • Go Handbook
  • HTML Handbook
  • JS Handbook
  • Laravel Handbook
  • Next.js Handbook
  • Node.js Handbook
  • PHP Handbook
  • Python Handbook
  • React Handbook
  • SQL Handbook
  • Svelte Handbook
  • Swift Handbook
...download them all now!

Also, JOIN MY CODING BOOTCAMP, an amazing cohort course that will be a huge step up in your coding career - covering React, Next.js - next edition February 2025

Bootcamp 2025

Join the waiting list