Click image and get coordinates with Javascript
- September 2, 2006 by Emanuele Feronato
- Filed under Javascript | 71 Comments
I had to display several photos where the user can click over an interesting point and have its coordinates passed through a form.
Of course, it was a bit more complicated, but this is the code i want to share with you.
Let’s assume we have a photo like this:
If you continue to click on the photo, you will see pointer changing its position, same thing with x and y coordinates
How can it be done?
You can try this script, obviously changing path and styles according to your needs
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 | <html>
<head>
<script language="JavaScript">
function point_it(event){
pos_x = event.offsetX?(event.offsetX):event.pageX-document.getElementById("pointer_div").offsetLeft;
pos_y = event.offsetY?(event.offsetY):event.pageY-document.getElementById("pointer_div").offsetTop;
document.getElementById("cross").style.left = (pos_x-1) ;
document.getElementById("cross").style.top = (pos_y-15) ;
document.getElementById("cross").style.visibility = "visible" ;
document.pointform.form_x.value = pos_x;
document.pointform.form_y.value = pos_y;
}
</script>
</head>
<body>
<form name="pointform" method="post">
<div id="pointer_div" onclick="point_it(event)" style = "background-image:url('sun.jpg');width:500px;height:333px;">
<img src="point.gif" id="cross" style="position:relative;visibility:hidden;z-index:2;"></div>
You pointed on x = <input type="text" name="form_x" size="4" /> - y = <input type="text" name="form_y" size="4" />
</form>
</body>
</html> |
Tested both on Firefox and Explorer, it seems to work well.
Enjoy and give me feedback.
71 Responses
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(98 votes, average: 4.55 out of 5)

Hey man! Thanks for posting this script! I modified it to make a basic image map coordinates widget. So you can click twice and make a rectangle and copy the coordinates. It’s basically a script for something I’m working on.
http://www.shawngo.com/mappr/clicktest.html
Cheers
Hi,
thank you for this nice example. It works just great in IE and Opera, but there are some strange problems with Firefox. Once I saw it worked on FF 1.5.0.7 well, but never again. Whenever I open this page (I mean your site, not my local tests) now using FF, pointer image just stuck in the left top corner of the background photo.
I’m just wondering if this is some problem with my FF installation, or something else.
BTW, it seems to be related to the “DOCTYPE” declaration, without it it works.
great script – exactly what i needed this late night.
I noticed however a funny feature:
If you click anywhere and click exactly the same place again it goes to x=1 and Y=15
But nevertheless – nice – very nice!
Seems to be an issue due to WordPress DOCTYPE declaration anc CSS.
On a standalone page it works well.
Thanks for posting such a nice script. Found it very useful as i am working on such a part. Anyway thank you very much. Keep up the great work.
thank i was in surch for long . it great people like u r ther on net
thank you
Doesn’t see to work on Firefox 2.0 (on OS X at least)
I get the pointer once, but then it does not move again.
Also the coordinates are relative to the page,not the image- is that the intention?
Doesn’t work in firefox 2.0 in linux either. Same behavior as described above…
Well.
It does work in FF 2.0 on Windows…
But “You pointed here” is always on the same place up in the left corner.
Nice script.
Hi,
Need help with a bug in this script. If you click on the same position twice, the pointer will jump up to the left corner (in IE). Any idea how to solve it?
Grateful
If you replace event.pageX and event.pageY with event.layerX and event.layerY in the Javascript, it should work in FF as well.
(Tested OK in Opera 9.10 and FF1.5.09 and FF2.0.0.1 and IE6)
:-)
Hi! Very nice site! Thanks you very much! w0ZeTcpYUT0Un
No luck in FF 2.0 (on windows), even with the change to layerX. The top-left corner is always in the 300 range, which I imagine is because I have a navigation area on the left-hand side of the page that it’s picking up on. The y is about 15 off. :(
To get it to work in FF I had to add
“px”
after the (pos_x-1) and (pos_y-15) (setting left/top)
cool script I like it!
Though i need only to know that mouse coordinates in JavaScript are conrolled by event.offsetX and event.offsetY properties. I’m a rookie in JavaSCript and simply do not know where to find this properties. I looked for a mouse methods and props (like ActionScript) but apparently found nothing.
So thank you, once again!
My search: click image coordinates (“the” Google)
First hit here…. and it’s 100% what i was looking for!!!
Great work, and as soon as i get my proj complete… i will buying that beer! 100% thanks!
Hi Emanuele ,
This is Excellent!!!
It really helped me a lot.
The code for Mozilla doesn’t work.
An excerpt from the code showing how to find pos_x and pos_y:
function point_it(event)
{
var pointer_div = document.getElementById(“pointer_div”);
//for IE
if (window.ActiveXObject) {
pos_x = window.event.offsetX;
pos_y = window.event.offsetY;
}
//for Firefox
else {
var top = 0, left = 0;
var elm = pointer_div;
while (elm) {
left = elm.offsetLeft;
top = elm.offsetTop;
elm = elm.offsetParent;
}
pos_x = event.pageX – left;
pos_y = event.pageY – top;
}
etc.
Thanks, this was extremely useful.
As for the bug where clicking twice makes the coordinates jump up to the upper left corner, you must remember that the flag that says ‘you pointed here’ is another element. Clicking in the same place (right on top of it) fires the click event from that img instead of the overall pointer_div. I am just a noob, so take my code with a grain of salt, but here is how I solved the prob: http://pastebin.com/ffd901ae
(That gives correct coordinates only, none of the other stuff is in there…)
Does anyone know what doctype you CAN use with FF?
The reason this does not work in Firefox 2.x is that the CSS attributes are being set wrongly. To set a CSS width/height/margin/padding/left/right/top/bottom property, you must specify pixels (px) or percentage (%). You cannot simply assign a number! IE is OK with just a number and assumes pixels though. Normally you set it like this:
… {
top: 200px;
}
in Javascript you set it like this:
document.getElementById(‘myPointer’).style.top = ’200px’;
The problem is the script is doing this:
document.getElementById(“cross”).style.left = (pos_x-1);
Notice there is no ‘px’.. the fix is simple:
document.getElementById(“cross”).style.left = (pos_x-1).toString() ‘px’;
document.getElementById(“cross”).style.top = (pos_y-15).toString ‘px’;
Hope this helps!
As above but the complete working script in firefox/ie/opera is..
function point_it(event){
pos_x = event.offsetX?(event.offsetX):event.layerX-document.getElementById(“pointer_div”).offsetLeft;
pos_y = event.offsetY?(event.offsetY):event.layerY-document.getElementById(“pointer_div”).offsetTop;
document.getElementById(“cross”).style.left = (pos_x-20) “px” ;
document.getElementById(“cross”).style.top = (pos_y-29) “px” ;
document.getElementById(“cross”).style.visibility = “visible” ;
document.pointform.form_x.value = pos_x;
document.pointform.form_y.value = pos_y;
}
Thanks everyone.
Just took several hours of ‘dog-work’ off an assignment for me.
Huge thanks!
Nice tutorial! Just what I was looking for my new project. ^_^
it was really usefull and good idea, i really enjoyed it :)
thanks keep on updating us with such a marvellous piece of code..
bubyeee
Danny Tipple’s fx sollution has bug in while loop :
it should be:
while (elm) {
left = elm.offsetLeft;
top = elm.offsetTop;
elm = elm.offsetParent;
}
so whole function is:
function point_it(event){
var pointer_div = document.getElementById(“pointer_div”);
if (window.ActiveXObject) {
pos_x = window.event.offsetX;
pos_y = window.event.offsetY;
}
//for Firefox
else {
var top = 0, left = 0;
var elm = pointer_div;
while (elm) {
left = elm.offsetLeft;
top = elm.offsetTop;
elm = elm.offsetParent;
}
pos_x = event.pageX – left;
pos_y = event.pageY – top;
}
document.pointform.form_x.value = pos_x;
document.pointform.form_y.value = pos_y;
}
now I see it is forum problem – signs like ‘ ‘ are removed from posts
so again
while (elm) {
left plus= elm.offsetLeft;
top plus= elm.offsetTop;
elm plus= elm.offsetParent;
}
I don’t think that this works in IE7. When I click on the image, the “you clicked here” image appears miles away to the right. And sometimes above it!
A correction to radek_gasiorek’s correction:
while (elm) {
left plus= elm.offsetLeft;
top plus= elm.offsetTop;
elm = elm.offsetParent;
}
note that the elm = elm.offsetParent is not a plus=.
aside from the caveats, great script!
Ok
first of all it worked in ff or IE or Opra
I guess the standards have changed.
The sum of offsets come handy only for the IE,
Firefox returns the right location with page(X/Y) property of the event.
To get the right “element” clicked in IE you need to use the srcElement property of the event (the target property in Firefox).
That “element” will be used in the sum function – (while (elm) {//do} ).
Then calculate the x,y coordinates clicked.
The alter will be to use event.clientX and not event.offsetX for IE :
x = event.clientX + document.body.scrollLeft + document.documentElement.scrollLeft;
same for y (replace Left with Top).
If code needed let me know here.
I’ll check in next week.
BUG: Position problem of ‘you pointed here’ object. Change value of positing tag.
OLD:
position:relative;
TRUE:
position:absolute;
Thank you.
Good Job
Thanks
Thanks very Much , For a valuable piece of work.
none JS super simple method..
x and y returned as URL variables
truly helpful
thangs
Hi there,
this should be the complete working source code for IE + FF
unfortunately the pointer doesn´t appear anymore!
does anybody know if there is a version like shawn described in the first post (http://www.shawngo.com/mappr/clicktest.html)??
regards, Julian
function point_it(event){
var pointer_div = document.getElementById(“pointer_div”);
if (window.ActiveXObject) {
pos_x = window.event.offsetX;
pos_y = window.event.offsetY;
}
//for Firefox
else {
var top = 0, left = 0;
var elm = pointer_div;
while (elm) {
left = elm.offsetLeft;
top = elm.offsetTop;
elm = elm.offsetParent;
}
pos_x = event.pageX – left;
pos_y = event.pageY – top;
}
document.pointform.form_x.value = pos_x;
document.pointform.form_y.value = pos_y;
}
You pointed on x = – y =
I was wondering if anyone has had any luck getting the pointer to appear with the latest code by Julian. I haven’t.
Thanks.
Is it possible to set picture’s top-left corner as the code’s reference top-left corner instead of page itself. Cause when you change picture’s position or if you have a different resolution coordinates will be different in this code…
Hey..I have been looking for something similar to this. I would actually like for the coordinates to be displayed in a stationary graphic when the user moves their mouse anywhere on the website. How could I adapt this code to do that?
thankz it really helped a lot in my project….. tis was better than any software…… once again thankz a lot..
Hey there…
Just tried this script on my site, and played with it a little to try and get it working right.
It works fine in IE – the top left of the div I’m wanting to use with it comes up as 0,0. However, in Firefox, the top left of the div is like 380,267.
In a perfect world, I could just subtract these values and make it 0,0 but obviously different screen resolutions etc will change it – I’ve also noticed that if I shrink my browser window so that the div gets closer to the left of the page (it’s centered right now), the ‘x’ coord shrinks too.
I love the idea of this script but has anyone got any idea how to fix my dilema?? Again, it works perfectly in IE, but not in Firefox.
Thanks!
Dave
Hey there… just as I posted I found a fix! This might help anyone out…
http://acko.net/blog/mouse-handling-and-absolute-positions-in-javascript
Seems to work for me in all browsers!!
Thanks to this site though for giving me the initial info :-D
Dave
Hello,
Thanks a lot! I was trying to do something like this and almost surrended and then I’ve found Your solution!
On Safari 3.1.1 in Mac OS X 10.4.11 works perfectly!
Really Nice tutorial..Thanks..:)
Thank you very much…
Saved me from a lot of pain.
Hi, i have some problems when i try to insert more than 1 pointer:
The second pointer div always appears out of the image, the x coordinate is correct but the y is y+image height.
Cound you please help me?
[...] get mouse coordinates at click image in JavaScript page_revision: 1, last_edited: 1224589375|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z (%O ago) edittags history files print site tools+ options edit sections append backlinks view source parent block rename delete help | terms of service | privacy | report a bug | flag as objectionable Hosted by Wikidot.com — get your free wiki now! Unless stated otherwise Content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License Click here to edit contents of this page. Click here to toggle editing of individual sections of the page (if possible). Watch headings for an “edit” link when available. Append content without editing the whole page source. Check out how this page has evolved in the past. If you want to discuss contents of this page – this is the easiest way to do it. View and manage file attachments for this page. A few useful tools to manage this Site. See pages that link to and include this page. Change the name (also URL address, possibly the category) of the page. View wiki source for this page without editing. View/set parent page (used for creating breadcrumbs and structured layout). Notify administrators if there is objectionable content in this page. Something does not work as expected? Find out what you can do. General Wikidot.com documentation and help section. Wikidot.com Terms of Service – what you can, what you should not etc. Wikidot.com Privacy Policy. _uff = false; _uacct = “UA-68540-5″; _udn=”wikidot.com”; urchinTracker(); [...]
Hello all,
Firstly thank you to you for creating this script and thanks to everyone who has posted replies with minor fixes here and there on this script.
I am wondering if a kind soul would enlighten me by posting their final version of this script which would allow me to put a href on the pointer image and not have the coordinates change when that is clicked on!
It’s been puzzling me all night and at 2AM I’ve finally given in and had to ask!
Thanks again everyone.
Jinx
Just the ticket for updating staff location maps on our intranet. Thanks.
I had trouble getting this to work in newer browswers. Here is my solution
function coord( e, image) {
var posx = 0;
var posy = 0;
if (!e) var e = window.event;
if (e.pageX || e.pageY) {
posx = e.pageX;
posy = e.pageY;
}
else if (e.clientX || e.clientY) {
posx = event.offsetX;
posy = event.offsetY;
}
if (image.x || image.y) {
posx -= image.x;
posy -= image.y;
}
theForm=document.aspnetForm;
theForm.form_x.value=posx;
theForm.form_y.value=posy;
}
You pointed on x = – y =
tested in IE7 and FF3
if (window.ActiveXObject) {
pos_x = window.event.offsetX;
pos_y = window.event.offsetY;
}else{
// example FF
var top = 0, left = 0;
var elm = pointer_div;
while (elm) {
left = elm.offsetLeft + left;
top = elm.offsetTop + top;
elm = elm.offsetParent;
}
pos_x = event.pageX – left;
pos_y = event.pageY – top;
}
[...] del mouse. Se uso clientX e clientY funziona su IE ma non > su FF. Mi sembra che l’esempio http://www.emanueleferonato.com/2006…th-javascript/ faccia il caso tuo Ciao [...]
[...] un ejemplo de como ejecutar esto sobre una imagen – Click image and get coordinates with Javascript http://www.emanueleferonato.com/2006…th-javascript/ Como lo estan implementando? ya que con postback es un tanto "no llamativo".. Podrias [...]
[...] Image Question Hi Jason, Is this helpful? Javascript solution: http://www.emanueleferonato.com/2006…th-javascript/ ASP.NET solution: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr…wf(VS.85).aspx Some extended discussion: [...]
Image Map Prototype
function point_it(event)
{
var pos_x=0; /* this is required for IE */
var pos_y=0; /* this is required for IE */
var pointer_img = document.getElementById(“pointer_img”); /* pointer_img is an id of image tag or div tag as per your need */
/****************** Rest of the code is same as per ikod ***************************/
if (window.ActiveXObject)
{
pos_x = window.event.offsetX;
pos_y = window.event.offsetY;
}
else
{
// example FF
var top = 0, left = 0;
var elm = pointer_img;
while (elm) {
left = elm.offsetLeft + left;
top = elm.offsetTop + top;
elm = elm.offsetParent;
}
pos_x = event.pageX – left;
pos_y = event.pageY – top;
}
document.getElementById(“pos_x”).value = pos_x; /************* pos_x & pos_y is the id of the input tags *************/
document.getElementById(“pos_y”).value = pos_y;
}
<!– –>
x=
y=
It seems there is a requirement for IE for this script to work – you must declare the event listener with the event parameter:
If you ommit “event” in this declaration or use javascript to assign the handler like:
document.getElementById(‘pointer-div’).onclick=point_it;
IE will not pass the default “event” argument to the function and you will get undefined elements errors.
Took me a while to figure that out, hope this helps someone…
You don’t necessarily need any special script if you have your image as a submit button (type=â€imageâ€) on a form. The X and Y values are returned with the form submission – standard browser behaviour.
html:
“”
myimage.x and myimage.y are returned. However, these are converted to myimage_x and myimage_y by PHP.
PHP:
echo ‘X:’.$_POST["myimage_x"].’ Y:’.$_POST["myimage_y"];
I needed to find the location of X and Y whenever you click on any spot on the window. I am using the following script for this. It works on IE and FF.
function clickedXY(event)
{
// for IE
if (window.ActiveXObject)
{
pos_x = window.event.offsetX;
pos_y = window.event.offsetY;
}
//for Firefox
else
{
pos_x = event.pageX;
pos_y = event.pageY;
}
str = “x=” + pos_x + ” y=” + pos_y + “\nlocation=” + document.location ;
alert(str);
}
I have added the capability to have the coordinates from the whole window registered or from specific areas on a window (one or more).
function clickedXY(event, id)
{
if (window.ActiveXObject)
{
pos_x = window.event.offsetX;
pos_y = window.event.offsetY;
}
else //for Firefox
{
pos_x = event.pageX;
pos_y = event.pageY;
}
var rtn = "&id="+id;
rtn += "&pos_x="+pos_x;
rtn += "&pos_y="+pos_y;
rtn += "&url="+document.location;
alert(rtn);
}
<!-- -->
Test section 1
this is a test section
entry for whatever
you can think of.
Test section 2
this is a test section
entry for whatever
you can think of.
I’m new to this. I copied your script into one of my pages. How do I actually connect that script with a picture I need to get the coordinates for?
Thanks for understanding my learning curve.
Cool Tip…It reduces lot of work specially developing image maps.
Hi,
I need ur,help.
I have an image of a counrty.which contains 113
cities.From which I have to work on 78 cities.
My requirement is like when I move the mouse to my 78 cites the mouse pointer became a hand and a pop up will caome with the city information.Can u suggest how to work on it?
Hi all,
Thanks for the hot discussion and helps by providing your experience.
I am wondering, how can we put such appliction to get control over a VLC Plugin/activex for getting coordinate of a running video.
It will be helpful to control video on full screen without using other controls
Really!!!
Thank u so much!! I was searching for this code! You deserve to be appreciated!!Once again Thank u so much
Your rating is 5*****
Hi.. Nice article..
Is it possible to display the image path on mouse click. E.g. on clicking the image or a link, it should display the actual image or file path and get the same copied to the clipboard. same as the case with copy shortcut in windows
Thanks for the post, i’m using the x position returned as an array subscript to a javascript parameter passed to a bookmarking function. This saves a few lines of code (1 href instead of 12 and one image instead of 12 images) and allows me to put the js code in one external file for the hole site.
I am new at this and i am confused as all heck if anyone could assist me my e-mail is Moncaric28@live.ca
could use some help with a few things. thanks
I use this script, it works really well even with complex layouts (the one in this page doesn’t).
http://www.scribd.com/doc/29158842/Get-Mouse-Position-Relative-to-Image
Fantastic
How to implement this in google maps
How to implement this in google maps.
Thanks a lot ,what a wonderfull code ,its works very well
i hope it can help on mobile app enabled javascript to fullfill any requirement.