702
votes

I have 2 HTML files, suppose a.html and b.html. In a.html I want to include b.html.

In JSF I can do it like that:

<ui:include src="b.xhtml" />

It means that inside a.xhtml file, I can include b.xhtml.

How can we do it in *.html file?

30
possible duplicate of Equivalent of include() in HTMLWesley Murch
NO! its 2 different things!lolo
related, but for localhost: stackoverflow.com/questions/7542872/…cregox
<object type="text/html" data="b.xhtml"></object>MarMarAba

30 Answers

740
votes

In my opinion the best solution uses jQuery:

a.html:

<html> 
  <head> 
    <script src="jquery.js"></script> 
    <script> 
    $(function(){
      $("#includedContent").load("b.html"); 
    });
    </script> 
  </head> 

  <body> 
     <div id="includedContent"></div>
  </body> 
</html>

b.html:

<p>This is my include file</p>

This method is a simple and clean solution to my problem.

The jQuery .load() documentation is here.

183
votes

Expanding lolo's answer from above, here is a little more automation if you have to include a lot of files. Use this JS code:

$(function () {
  var includes = $('[data-include]')
  $.each(includes, function () {
    var file = 'views/' + $(this).data('include') + '.html'
    $(this).load(file)
  })
})

And then to include something in the html:

<div data-include="header"></div>
<div data-include="footer"></div>

Which would include the file views/header.html and views/footer.html.

160
votes

My solution is similar to the one of lolo above. However, I insert the HTML code via JavaScript's document.write instead of using jQuery:

a.html:

<html> 
  <body>
  <h1>Put your HTML content before insertion of b.js.</h1>
      ...

  <script src="b.js"></script>

      ...

  <p>And whatever content you want afterwards.</p>
  </body>
</html>

b.js:

document.write('\
\
    <h1>Add your HTML code here</h1>\
\
     <p>Notice however, that you have to escape LF's with a '\', just like\
        demonstrated in this code listing.\
    </p>\
\
');

The reason for me against using jQuery is that jQuery.js is ~90kb in size, and I want to keep the amount of data to load as small as possible.

In order to get the properly escaped JavaScript file without much work, you can use the following sed command:

sed 's/\\/\\\\/g;s/^.*$/&\\/g;s/'\''/\\'\''/g' b.html > escapedB.html

Or just use the following handy bash script published as a Gist on Github, that automates all necessary work, converting b.html to b.js: https://gist.github.com/Tafkadasoh/334881e18cbb7fc2a5c033bfa03f6ee6

Credits to Greg Minshall for the improved sed command that also escapes back slashes and single quotes, which my original sed command did not consider.

Alternatively for browsers that support template literals the following also works:

b.js:

document.write(`

    <h1>Add your HTML code here</h1>

     <p>Notice, you do not have to escape LF's with a '\',
        like demonstrated in the above code listing.
    </p>

`);
93
votes

Checkout HTML5 imports via Html5rocks tutorial and at polymer-project

For example:

<head>
  <link rel="import" href="/path/to/imports/stuff.html">
</head>
69
votes

Shameless plug of a library that I wrote the solve this.

https://github.com/LexmarkWeb/csi.js

<div data-include="/path/to/include.html"></div>

The above will take the contents of /path/to/include.html and replace the div with it.

50
votes

No need for scripts. No need to do any fancy stuff server-side (tho that would probably be a better option)

<iframe src="/path/to/file.html" seamless></iframe>

Since old browsers don't support seamless, you should add some css to fix it:

iframe[seamless] {
    border: none;
}

Keep in mind that for browsers that don't support seamless, if you click a link in the iframe it will make the frame go to that url, not the whole window. A way to get around that is to have all links have target="_parent", tho the browser support is "good enough".

47
votes

A simple server side include directive to include another file found in the same folder looks like this:

<!--#include virtual="a.html" --> 

Also you can try:

<!--#include file="a.html" -->
35
votes

A very old solution I did met my needs back then, but here's how to do it standards-compliant code:

<!--[if IE]>
<object classid="clsid:25336920-03F9-11CF-8FD0-00AA00686F13" data="some.html">
<p>backup content</p>
</object>
<![endif]-->

<!--[if !IE]> <-->
<object type="text/html" data="some.html">
<p>backup content</p>
</object>
<!--> <![endif]-->
19
votes

Following works if html content from some file needs to be included: For instance, the following line will include the contents of piece_to_include.html at the location where the OBJECT definition occurs.

...text before...
<OBJECT data="file_to_include.html">
Warning: file_to_include.html could not be included.
</OBJECT>
...text after...

Reference: http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-html40-970708/struct/includes.html#h-7.7.4

18
votes

Here is my inline solution:

(() => {
    const includes = document.getElementsByTagName('include');
    [].forEach.call(includes, i => {
        let filePath = i.getAttribute('src');
        fetch(filePath).then(file => {
            file.text().then(content => {
                i.insertAdjacentHTML('afterend', content);
                i.remove();
            });
        });
    });
})();
<p>FOO</p>

<include src="a.html">Loading...</include>

<p>BAR</p>

<include src="b.html">Loading...</include>

<p>TEE</p>
17
votes

As an alternative, if you have access to the .htaccess file on your server, you can add a simple directive that will allow php to be interpreted on files ending in .html extension.

RemoveHandler .html
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php .html

Now you can use a simple php script to include other files such as:

<?php include('b.html'); ?>
14
votes

In w3.js include works like this:

<body>
<div w3-include-HTML="h1.html"></div>
<div w3-include-HTML="content.html"></div>
<script>w3.includeHTML();</script>
</body>

For proper description look into this: https://www.w3schools.com/howto/howto_html_include.asp

10
votes

This is what helped me. For adding a block of html code from b.html to a.html, this should go into the head tag of a.html:

<script src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.10.2.js"></script>

Then in the body tag, a container is made with an unique id and a javascript block to load the b.html into the container, as follows:

<div id="b-placeholder">

</div>

<script>
$(function(){
  $("#b-placeholder").load("b.html");
});
</script>
9
votes

I know this is a very old post, so some methods were not available back then. But here is my very simple take on it (based on Lolo's answer).

It relies on the HTML5 data-* attributes and therefore is very generic in that is uses jQuery's for-each function to get every .class matching "load-html" and uses its respective 'data-source' attribute to load the content:

<div class="container-fluid">
    <div class="load-html" id="NavigationMenu" data-source="header.html"></div>
    <div class="load-html" id="MainBody" data-source="body.html"></div>
    <div class="load-html" id="Footer" data-source="footer.html"></div>
</div>
<script src="js/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script>
$(function () {
    $(".load-html").each(function () {
        $(this).load(this.dataset.source);
    });
});
</script>
7
votes

Most of the solutions works but they have issue with jquery:

The issue is following code $(document).ready(function () { alert($("#includedContent").text()); } alerts nothing instead of alerting included content.

I write the below code, in my solution you can access to included content in $(document).ready function:

(The key is loading included content synchronously).

index.htm:

<html>
    <head>
        <script src="jquery.js"></script>

        <script>
            (function ($) {
                $.include = function (url) {
                    $.ajax({
                        url: url,
                        async: false,
                        success: function (result) {
                            document.write(result);
                        }
                    });
                };
            }(jQuery));
        </script>

        <script>
            $(document).ready(function () {
                alert($("#test").text());
            });
        </script>
    </head>

    <body>
        <script>$.include("include.inc");</script>
    </body>

</html>

include.inc:

<div id="test">
    There is no issue between this solution and jquery.
</div>

jquery include plugin on github

7
votes

You can use a polyfill of HTML Imports (https://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/webcomponents/imports/), or that simplified solution https://github.com/dsheiko/html-import

For example, on the page you import HTML block like that:

<link rel="html-import" href="./some-path/block.html" >

The block may have imports of its own:

<link rel="html-import" href="./some-other-path/other-block.html" >

The importer replaces the directive with the loaded HTML pretty much like SSI

These directives will be served automatically as soon as you load this small JavaScript:

<script async src="./src/html-import.js"></script>

It will process the imports when DOM is ready automatically. Besides, it exposes an API that you can use to run manually, to get logs and so on. Enjoy :)

5
votes

To insert contents of the named file:

<!--#include virtual="filename.htm"-->
4
votes

The Athari´s answer (the first!) was too much conclusive! Very Good!

But if you would like to pass the name of the page to be included as URL parameter, this post has a very nice solution to be used combined with:

http://www.jquerybyexample.net/2012/06/get-url-parameters-using-jquery.html

So it becomes something like this:

Your URL:

www.yoursite.com/a.html?p=b.html

The a.html code now becomes:

<html> 
  <head> 
    <script src="jquery.js"></script> 
    <script> 
    function GetURLParameter(sParam)
    {
      var sPageURL = window.location.search.substring(1);
      var sURLVariables = sPageURL.split('&');
      for (var i = 0; i < sURLVariables.length; i++) 
      {
        var sParameterName = sURLVariables[i].split('=');
        if (sParameterName[0] == sParam) 
        {
            return sParameterName[1];
        }
      }
    }​
    $(function(){
      var pinc = GetURLParameter('p');
      $("#includedContent").load(pinc); 
    });
    </script> 
  </head> 

  <body> 
     <div id="includedContent"></div>
  </body> 
</html>

It worked very well for me! I hope have helped :)

4
votes

html5rocks.com has a very good tutorial on this stuff, and this might be a little late, but I myself didn't know this existed. w3schools also has a way to do this using their new library called w3.js. The thing is, this requires the use of a web server and and HTTPRequest object. You can't actually load these locally and test them on your machine. What you can do though, is use polyfills provided on the html5rocks link at the top, or follow their tutorial. With a little JS magic, you can do something like this:

 var link = document.createElement('link');
 if('import' in link){
     //Run import code
     link.setAttribute('rel','import');
     link.setAttribute('href',importPath);
     document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(link);
     //Create a phantom element to append the import document text to
     link = document.querySelector('link[rel="import"]');
     var docText = document.createElement('div');
     docText.innerHTML = link.import;
     element.appendChild(docText.cloneNode(true));
 } else {
     //Imports aren't supported, so call polyfill
     importPolyfill(importPath);
 }

This will make the link (Can change to be the wanted link element if already set), set the import (unless you already have it), and then append it. It will then from there take that and parse the file in HTML, and then append it to the desired element under a div. This can all be changed to fit your needs from the appending element to the link you are using. I hope this helped, it may irrelevant now if newer, faster ways have come out without using libraries and frameworks such as jQuery or W3.js.

UPDATE: This will throw an error saying that the local import has been blocked by CORS policy. Might need access to the deep web to be able to use this because of the properties of the deep web. (Meaning no practical use)

4
votes

Here's my approach using Fetch API and async function

<div class="js-component" data-name="header" data-ext="html"></div>
<div class="js-component" data-name="footer" data-ext="html"></div>

<script>
    const components = document.querySelectorAll('.js-component')

    const loadComponent = async c => {
        const { name, ext } = c.dataset
        const response = await fetch(`${name}.${ext}`)
        const html = await response.text()
        c.innerHTML = html
    }

    [...components].forEach(loadComponent)
</script>
4
votes

Did you try a iFrame injection?

It injects the iFrame in the document and deletes itself (it is supposed to be then in the HTML DOM)

<iframe src="header.html" onload="this.before((this.contentDocument.body||this.contentDocument).children[0]);this.remove()"></iframe>

Regards

3
votes

There is no direct HTML solution for the task for now. Even HTML Imports (which is permanently in draft) will not do the thing, because Import != Include and some JS magic will be required anyway.
I recently wrote a VanillaJS script that is just for inclusion HTML into HTML, without any complications.

Just place in your a.html

<link data-wi-src="b.html" />
<!-- ... and somewhere below is ref to the script ... -->
<script src="wm-html-include.js"> </script>  

It is open-source and may give an idea (I hope)

3
votes

You can do that with JavaScript's library jQuery like this:

HTML:

<div class="banner" title="banner.html"></div>

JS:

$(".banner").each(function(){
    var inc=$(this);
    $.get(inc.attr("title"), function(data){
        inc.replaceWith(data);
    });
});

Please note that banner.html should be located under the same domain your other pages are in otherwise your webpages will refuse the banner.html file due to Cross-Origin Resource Sharing policies.

Also, please note that if you load your content with JavaScript, Google will not be able to index it so it's not exactly a good method for SEO reasons.

2
votes

Another approach using Fetch API with Promise

<html>
 <body>
  <div class="root" data-content="partial.html">
  <script>
      const root = document.querySelector('.root')
      const link = root.dataset.content;

      fetch(link)
        .then(function (response) {
          return response.text();
        })
        .then(function (html) {
          root.innerHTML = html;
        });
  </script>
 </body>
</html>
2
votes

Web Components

I create following web-component similar to JSF

<ui-include src="b.xhtml"><ui-include>

You can use it as regular html tag inside your pages (after including snippet js code)

customElements.define('ui-include', class extends HTMLElement {
  async connectedCallback() {
    let src = this.getAttribute('src');
    this.innerHTML = await (await fetch(src)).text();;
  }
})
ui-include { margin: 20px } /* example CSS */
<ui-include src="https://cors-anywhere.herokuapp.com/https://example.com/index.html"></ui-include>

<div>My page data... - in this snippet styles overlaps...</div>

<ui-include src="https://cors-anywhere.herokuapp.com/https://www.w3.org/index.html"></ui-include>
2
votes

Use includeHTML (smallest js-lib: ~150 lines)

Loading HTML parts via HTML tag (pure js)
Supported load: async/sync, any deep recursive includes

Supported protocols: http://, https://, file:///
Supported browsers: IE 9+, FF, Chrome (and may be other)

USAGE:

1.Insert includeHTML into head section (or before body close tag) in HTML file:

<script src="js/includeHTML.js"></script>

2.Anywhere use includeHTML as HTML tag:

<div data-src="header.html"></div>
1
votes

Here is a great article, You can implement common library and just use below code to import any HTML files in one line.

<head>
   <link rel="import" href="warnings.html">
</head>

You can also try Google Polymer

1
votes

Using ES6 backticks ``: template literals!

let nick = "Castor", name = "Moon", nuts = 1

more.innerHTML = `

<h1>Hello ${nick} ${name}!</h1>

You collected ${nuts} nuts so far!

<hr>

Double it and get ${nuts + nuts} nuts!!

` 
<div id="more"></div>

This way we can include html without encoding quotes, include variables from the DOM, and so on.

It is a powerful templating engine, we can use separate js files and use events to load the content in place, or even separate everything in chunks and call on demand:

let inject = document.createElement('script');
inject.src= '//....com/template/panel45.js';
more.appendChild(inject);

https://caniuse.com/#feat=template-literals

1
votes

To get Solution working you need to include the file csi.min.js, which you can locate here.

As per the example shown on GitHub, to use this library you must include the file csi.js in your page header, then you need to add the data-include attribute with its value set to the file you want to include, on the container element.

Hide Copy Code

<html>
  <head>
    <script src="csi.js"></script>
  </head>
  <body>
    <div data-include="Test.html"></div>
  </body>
</html>

... hope it helps.

1
votes

I have one more solution to do this

Using Ajax in javascript

here is the explained code in Github repo https://github.com/dupinder/staticHTML-Include

basic idea is:

index.html

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <meta charset='utf-8'>
    <meta http-equiv='X-UA-Compatible' content='IE=edge'>
    <title>Page Title</title>
    <meta name='viewport' content='width=device-width, initial-scale=1'>
    <script src='main.js'></script>


</head>
<body>
    <header></header>

    <footer></footer>
</body>
</html>

main.js

fetch("./header.html")
  .then(response => {
    return response.text()
  })
  .then(data => {
    document.querySelector("header").innerHTML = data;
  });

fetch("./footer.html")
  .then(response => {
    return response.text()
  })
  .then(data => {
    document.querySelector("footer").innerHTML = data;
  });