Title: Disable Text Selection
Author: Gulshan Kumar
Published: <strong>October 8, 2024</strong>
Last modified: June 7, 2025

---

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# Disable Text Selection

 By [Gulshan Kumar](https://profiles.wordpress.org/thegulshankumar/)

[Download](https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/disable-text-selection.1.0.1.zip)

 * [Details](https://twd.wordpress.org/plugins/disable-text-selection/#description)
 * [Reviews](https://twd.wordpress.org/plugins/disable-text-selection/#reviews)
 *  [Installation](https://twd.wordpress.org/plugins/disable-text-selection/#installation)
 * [Development](https://twd.wordpress.org/plugins/disable-text-selection/#developers)

 [Support](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/disable-text-selection/)

## Description

This WordPress plugin controls text selection on your website by allowing users 
to select text only within specific HTML elements, effectively protecting your content.
By preventing unauthorized copying, you can maintain the integrity of your work.
Additionally, this plugin helps prevent content copying through browser extensions
or by disabling JavaScript, further enhancing your content protection strategy. 
Administrators retain full text selection capabilities, ensuring that the functionality
of your site remains intact. With a focus on enhancing user experience, this tool
effectively protects your intellectual property without compromising accessibility.

### Features

 * **Allowed Elements**:
    - `<form>`
    - `<input>`
    - `<textarea>`
    - `<pre>`
    - `<code>`
 * **Selection Control**:
    - Text selection is disabled on normal paragraphs to prevent unauthorized copying
      of your content.
    - If selected text exceeds ten characters in allowed areas, it will be cleared.
 * **Full Text Selection**:
    - The `CTRL + A` (or `Command + A` on Mac) shortcut is allowed within input 
      fields and text areas.
 * **Shift-Drag Support**:
    - Users can select text by clicking and dragging within allowed elements while
      holding the Shift key.

### Usage

Once activated, the plugin will manage text selection according to the specified
rules, enhancing user interaction while preventing the unauthorized copying of your
content.

### Support

For any questions or support requests, please open an issue in the plugin’s repository
or contact the plugin author.

## Installation

 1. Upload the plugin files to the `/wp-content/plugins/disable-text-selection` directory,
    or install the plugin through the WordPress plugins screen directly.
 2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ screen in WordPress.
 3. The plugin will automatically start controlling text selection on your site.

## FAQ

### How to Test if This Plugin is Working

After activating the plugin, please follow these steps to ensure it functions correctly:

 1. **Clear Your Cache**: It is essential to clear your page cache to reflect the changes
    made by the plugin.
 2. **Use Incognito Mode**: Open your site in Incognito mode, or use a non-administrator,
    non-editor account to simulate the experience of a regular visitor.
 3. **Check Functionality**:
 4.  * Visit your website and try selecting text from a paragraph. You should find 
       that text selection is disabled as intended.
     * Additionally, disable JavaScript in your browser settings and refresh the page.
       You should see a prompt requesting you to enable JavaScript to access the site.

By following these steps, you can effectively verify that the plugin is working 
as designed.

### Does it prevent bypassing protection in noscript mode

By default, yes. Every modern browser comes with JavaScript enabled, and there is
generally no compelling reason for users to disable it. However, if a user chooses
to disable JavaScript to bypass content protection, this plugin strictly enforces
the requirement to enable JavaScript first to deliver its protective features. If
you wish to disable this strict mode, you can do so using the following filter and
clear the page cache to reflect the changes, though I do not recommend this approach:

    ```
    add_filter( 'disable_text_selection_noscript', '__return_false' );
    ```

Protecting against text selection is a complex challenge, and significant efforts
have been made to ensure this plugin works effectively in most scenarios.

## Reviews

There are no reviews for this plugin.

## Contributors & Developers

“Disable Text Selection” is open source software. The following people have contributed
to this plugin.

Contributors

 *   [ Gulshan Kumar ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/thegulshankumar/)

[Translate “Disable Text Selection” into your language.](https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/disable-text-selection)

### Interested in development?

[Browse the code](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/disable-text-selection/),
check out the [SVN repository](https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/disable-text-selection/),
or subscribe to the [development log](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/disable-text-selection/)
by [RSS](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/disable-text-selection/?limit=100&mode=stop_on_copy&format=rss).

## Changelog

#### 1.0.1

 * Tested with WordPress 6.8.1

#### 1.0.0

 * Initial release

## Meta

 *  Version **1.0.1**
 *  Last updated **10 months ago**
 *  Active installations **30+**
 *  WordPress version ** 4.5 or higher **
 *  Tested up to **6.8.5**
 *  PHP version ** 5.6 or higher **
 *  Language
 * [English (US)](https://wordpress.org/plugins/disable-text-selection/)
 * Tags
 * [content-protection](https://twd.wordpress.org/plugins/tags/content-protection/)
   [text selection](https://twd.wordpress.org/plugins/tags/text-selection/)
 *  [Advanced View](https://twd.wordpress.org/plugins/disable-text-selection/advanced/)

## Ratings

No reviews have been submitted yet.

[Add my review](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/disable-text-selection/reviews/#new-post)

[See all reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/disable-text-selection/reviews/)

## Contributors

 *   [ Gulshan Kumar ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/thegulshankumar/)

## Support

Got something to say? Need help?

 [View support forum](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/disable-text-selection/)

## Donate

Would you like to support the advancement of this plugin?

 [ Donate to this plugin ](https://ko-fi.com/gulshan)