How to Create Text File & Download File From Server Using Javascript | Javascript File Download Example For Beginners

Welcome folks today in this blog post we will be creating the text file and download it from the server using javascript. All the full source code of the application is shown below.

Get Started

In order to get started you need to make an index.html file and copy paste the following code

index.html

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
    <title>Document</title>
</head>
<body>
    <textarea name="" id="textarea" cols="30" rows="10"></textarea>
    <button id="button">Download File</button>
</body>
</html>

<!DOCTYPE html>

<head>

<title>Document</title>

</head>

<body>

<button id="button">Download File</button>

</body>

</html>

As you can see we are creating the textarea element and inside it we have given the id parameter to the textarea so that we can get it’s value in javascript. And also we have the button to create and download the text file.

And now we need to write the javascript code for this above app as shown below

let button = document.getElementById('button')

    button.addEventListener('click',(e) => {
        let text = document.getElementById('textarea').value

        let filename = "filename.txt"

        download(text,filename)

    })

let button = document.getElementById('button')

button.addEventListener('click',(e) => {

let text = document.getElementById('textarea').value

let filename = "filename.txt"

download(text,filename)

})

As you can see in the above code we are targeting the button using it’s id and then we are binding the event listener of click. So when we click the button what should happen. So here in this we are first of all fetching the value of the textarea and then we are giving the output filename and then we are calling the download() method where we are passing the two arguments which is the actual text and the filename. And now we need to define this function which is download() method as shown below

function download(text,filename){
        let element = document.createElement('a')

        element.setAttribute('href','data:text/plain;charset=utf-8,' + encodeURI(text))

        element.setAttribute('download',filename)

        element.style.display = "none"

        document.body.appendChild(element)

        element.click()

        document.body.removeChild(element)
    }

function download(text,filename){

let element = document.createElement('a')

element.setAttribute('href','data:text/plain;charset=utf-8,' + encodeURI(text))

element.setAttribute('download',filename)

element.style.display = "none"

document.body.appendChild(element)

element.click()

document.body.removeChild(element)

}

As you can see inside this method we are first of creating the anchor element and then inside it we are setting the attribute of href and inside it we are using the encodeURI() method to convert the entered text to an encoded text. And then we are setting the download attribute. And then we are clicking the anchor element automatically. And after that we are removing the anchor element automatically.