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document.characterSet

The Document.characterSet read-only property returns the character encoding of the document that it's currently rendered with. (A character encoding is a set of characters and how to interpret bytes into those characters.)

A “character set” and a “character encoding” are related, but different. Despite the name of this property, it returns the encoding.

Users can override the developer-specified encoding inside the Content-Type header or inline like <meta charset="utf-8">, such as with Firefox's View → Text Encoding menu. This override is provided to fix incorrect developer-specified encodings that result in garbled text.

The properties document.charset and document.inputEncoding are legacy aliases for document.characterSet. Do not use them any more.

Syntax

var string = document.characterSet;

Examples

<button onclick="console.log(document.characterSet);">
  Log character encoding
</button>
<!-- displays document's character encoding in the dev console, such as "ISO-8859-1" or "UTF-8" -->

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
DOM The definition of 'characterSet' in that specification.	Living Standard	Initial definition.

Browser compatibilityUpdate compatibility data on GitHub

	Desktop
	Chrome	Edge	Firefox	Internet Explorer	Opera	Safari
Basic support	45 45 Yes `charset` alias was made read-only in 45. Uses the non-standard name: `charset` Yes Uses the non-standard name: `inputEncoding`	Yes Yes Yes Uses the non-standard name: `charset` ? Uses the non-standard name: `inputEncoding`	Yes Yes 44 Uses the non-standard name: `charset` Yes Uses the non-standard name: `inputEncoding`	? ? ? Uses the non-standard name: `charset` ? Uses the non-standard name: `inputEncoding`	? ? ? Uses the non-standard name: `charset` ? Uses the non-standard name: `inputEncoding`	? ? 9 Uses the non-standard name: `charset` ? Uses the non-standard name: `inputEncoding`

	Mobile
	Android webview	Chrome for Android	Edge Mobile	Firefox for Android	Opera for Android	iOS Safari	Samsung Internet
Basic support	45 45 Yes Uses the non-standard name: `charset` Yes Uses the non-standard name: `inputEncoding`	45 45 Yes Uses the non-standard name: `charset` Yes Uses the non-standard name: `inputEncoding`	Yes Yes Yes Uses the non-standard name: `charset` ? Uses the non-standard name: `inputEncoding`	Yes Yes 44 Uses the non-standard name: `charset` Yes Uses the non-standard name: `inputEncoding`	? ? ? Uses the non-standard name: `charset` ? Uses the non-standard name: `inputEncoding`	? ? ? Uses the non-standard name: `charset` ? Uses the non-standard name: `inputEncoding`	?

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https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/document/characterSet