# Select and get selected text in panel

**URL:** <https://forums.creativeclouddeveloper.com/t/select-and-get-selected-text-in-panel/5117>\
**Category:** Adobe XD\
**Tags:** feature-request, api-feedback\
**Created:** [August 23, 2022, 10:03pm UTC](https://forums.creativeclouddeveloper.com/t/select-and-get-selected-text-in-panel/5117 "2022-08-23T22:03:18Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Velara](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/forums.creativeclouddeveloper.com/velara/32/1278_2.png) [@Velara](https://forums.creativeclouddeveloper.com/u/Velara)\
**Post date:** [August 23, 2022, 10:03pm UTC](https://forums.creativeclouddeveloper.com/t/select-and-get-selected-text-in-panel/5117/1 "2022-08-23T22:03:18Z")

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Feature request to make text selectable.

**Use case:**  
Michelle is working a multi-language translation plugin and when she selects a text scenenode on the artboard the plugin translates the text to another language and displays it in a div or paragraph or text area. She then selects the text from the language she is currently working on and then copies that to the clipboard and then pastes it into another artboard specific for that language.

Occasionally she wants to look up a word. So she highlights or double clicks on the word in the panel and clicks a button called “look up”. The plugin gets the selected word or text and translates it for her. This is all thanks to being able to highlight, select and get the selected text.

**Related**

> [@Get textarea selectionStart and selectionEnd](http://forums.creativeclouddeveloper.com/t/get-textarea-selectionstart-and-selectionend/657):
>
> I’m attempting to insert a tab character when the tab key is pressed in a text area. I’ve tried a few examples on line and could not get it to work. The examples I’ve found reference selectionStart and selectionEnd to do this and last I checked these weren’t supported.