HTML DOM Documents
The Document Object
When an HTML document is loaded into a web browser, it becomes adocument object.
Thedocument object is the root node of the HTML document.
Thedocument object is a property of thewindow object.
Thedocument object is accessed with:
window.document or justdocument
HTML DOM Properties and Methods
Revised January 2026
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| activeElement | Returns the currently focused element in the document |
| addEventListener() | Attaches an event handler to the document |
| adoptNode() | Adopts a node from another document |
| anchors | DEPRECATED |
| applets | DEPRECATED |
| baseURI | Returns the absolute base URI of a document |
| body | Sets or returns the document's body (the <body> element) |
| charset | DEPRECATED |
| characterSet | Returns the character encoding for the document |
| close() | Closes the output stream previously opened with document.open() |
| cookie | Returns all name/value pairs of cookies in the document |
| createAttribute() | Creates an attribute node |
| createComment() | Creates a Comment node with the specified text |
| createDocumentFragment() | Creates an empty DocumentFragment node |
| createElement() | Creates an Element node |
| createEvent() | Creates a new event |
| createTextNode() | Creates a Text node |
| defaultView | Returns the window object associated with a document, or null if none is available. |
| designMode | Controls whether the entire document should be editable or not. |
| doctype | Returns the Document Type Declaration associated with the document |
| documentElement | Returns the Document Element of the document (the <html> element) |
| documentMode | DEPRECATED |
| documentURI | Sets or returns the location of the document |
| domain | Returns the domain name of the server that loaded the document |
| domConfig | DEPRECATED |
| embeds | Returns a collection of all <embed> elements the document |
| execCommand() | DEPRECATED |
| forms | Returns a collection of all <form> elements in the document |
| getElementById() | Returns the element that has the ID attribute with the specified value |
| getElementsByClassName() | Returns anHTMLCollection containing all elements with the specified class name |
| getElementsByName() | Returns an liveNodeList containing all elements with the specified name |
| getElementsByTagName() | Returns anHTMLCollection containing all elements with the specified tag name |
| hasFocus() | Returns a Boolean value indicating whether the document has focus |
| head | Returns the <head> element of the document |
| images | Returns a collection of all <img> elements in the document |
| implementation | Returns the DOMImplementation object that handles this document |
| importNode() | Imports a node from another document |
| inputEncoding | DEPRECATED |
| lastModified | Returns the date and time the document was last modified |
| links | Returns a collection of all <a> and <area> elements in the document that have a href attribute |
| normalize() | Removes empty Text nodes, and joins adjacent nodes |
| normalizeDocument() | DEPRECATED |
| open() | Opens an HTML output stream to collect output from document.write() |
| querySelector() | Returns the first element that matches a specified CSS selector(s) in the document |
| querySelectorAll() | Returns a staticNodeList containing all elements that matches a specified CSS selector(s) in the document |
| readyState | Returns the (loading) status of the document |
| referrer | Returns the URL of the document that loaded the current document |
| removeEventListener() | Removes an event handler from the document (that has been attached with theaddEventListener() method) |
| renameNode() | DEPRECATED |
| scripts | Returns a collection of <script> elements in the document |
| strictErrorChecking | DEPRECATED |
| title | Sets or returns the title of the document |
| URL | Returns the full URL of the HTML document |
| write() | Writes HTML expressions or JavaScript code to a document |
| writeln() | Same as write(), but adds a newline character after each statement |
